MISCELLANIES. 


VOL.  III. 


4 


RIVINGTONS 

HonUon      .       .       .       .  .       .  Waterloo  Place 

©xfortl   Magdalen  Street 

dambrftige   Trinity  Street 


MISCELLANIES 

LI  TE  RA  RY    AND  RELIGIOUS 


CHR.  WORDSWORTH,  D.D. 

BISHOP  OF  LINCOLN 


IN    THREE  VOLUMES 
VOL.  Ill 


RIVINGTONS 
HonKou,  %fortf,  anti  Cambn'tJQf 

MDCCCLXXIX. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/miscellanieslite03word 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  III. 


RELIGION  IN  SCIENCE. 


PAGE 


Address  at  Colsterworth,  Lincolnshire,  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  birthplace  1 
Two  Books  of  Almighty  God — Nature  and  Scripture — Plan  of  the 

Nineteenth  Psalm     .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  1, 2 

Sir  Isaac  Newton     ..........  2 

Probability  of  Analogies  between  Nature  and  Grace  ....  3 

Bp.  Butler — Ecclesiasticus — Origen  .......  3 

The  Ptolemaic  and  Copernican  Systems  ;  Newton's  work  .  .  .  3,  4 
Probability  that,  if  the  Newtonian  System  is  true,  it  will  be  found  to  be 

in  harmony  with  the  divine  doings  in  the  World  of  Grace.  3 — 5 
Illustrations  of  this  proposition,  considered  with  reference  to  truths 

revealed  in  Scripture  ........ 

The  Sun  and  the  Planetary  System  ;  Christ  and  the  World  of  Grace 
Physical  Laws  of  motion  ;  Divine  Grace  and  Human  Free  will 
Other  relations  of  Planets  to  the  Sun 
Gravitation  and  Grace 
Answer  to  objections 


"  Laws  of  Nature  "  . 
Planets  and  Fixed  Stars  . 
Newton's  life  and  example 
Conclusion 


RELIGIOUS  USES  OF  CLASSICAL  STUDIES 


Preface  to  Theocritus      ........      14, 15 

Pious  heathens  and  modern  Sceptics        .....      16,  17 

Union  of  secular  and  sacred  studies  ......      18, 19 

Illustration  of  the  religious  uses  of  classical  studies,  from  the  works 

of  Horace      .      .   19—28 

Popular  estimate  of  the  character  of  Horace— how  far  accurate  .      19,  20 
Alexander  Knox  and  Dr.  Bentley     .......  20 

Providential  dispensation  in  the  long  continued  reign  of  Augustus  .  20 
His  plans  of  National  Reformation,  aided  by  Maecenas,  Agrippa, 

Horace,  and  Virgil  20,  21 


5,6 
6 

.  6,7 
.  7 
.  8,9 
.  8 
9, 10 
10,11 
11, 12 
12, 13 


VI 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Poetical  and  Political  Mission  of  Horace  21 

How  exemplified  in  the  assertion  of  the  Divine  Supremacy  over 

Governments    ..........  21 

And  in  the  assertion  of  the  need  of  Divine  help  and  protection  .  21, 22 
And  of  Public  Worship — restoration  of  Temples      .       .       .      21,  22 

Patriotism  22 

Simplicity  of  manners  22, 23 

Protests  against  Covetousness  and  prodigality  ....      23,  24 

Maintenance  of  purity  of  Marriage  .......  23 

Augustan  Legislation  upon  Marriage       .....      23,  24 

Failure  of  the  Imperial  attempts  to  reform  Society,  and  to  save  the 

Empire  from  corruption  and  dissolution    ....    23 — 26 

Horace's  two  noble  principles  of  action  and  composition  ;  filial  love ; 

and  dependence  on  a  higher  power    .....      24,  25 

What,  if  Horace  had  been  a  Christian  ?    .       .       .       .       .  .25 

Augustus  (aided  by  all  earthly  appliances)  failed.  Christianity 
has  succeeded,  in  social  and  domestic  reformation ;  the  reason 

why.  25,26 

Consequent  warning  to  England,  and  to  other  Nations  .  .  26,  27 
With  regard  to  Legislative  enactments,  and  also  as  to  systems  of 

National  Education  27,  28 

May  not  European  Nations  (if  they  apostatize  from  Christianity) 

become  as  bad  as  heathen  Rome  ?.....      27,  28 
"  Ethica  et  Spieitualia,"  for  the  use  of  Students  of  the  Theolo- 
gical School,  Lincoln  29 — 52 

Address  to  them  29,  30 

English  Teanslation  of  the  Moeal  and  Spieitual  Maxims  .  53—73 

On  the  Speead  of  Infidelity,  and  on  the  need  of  a  leaened 

Clebgy   74 

The  Bishop  of  Orleans,  his  description  of  French  popular  Literature .  74 
What  can  the  French  Church  do  to  counteract  its  influence  ?   .  .75 
Its  position  and  tendencies      ........  75 

Ultramontanism  drives  men  to  Unbelief  ......  75 

Hopes  of  Christendom  from  the  Anglican  Churches  .  .  .75,  78 
Consequent  duties  of  the  Anglican  Episcopate  and  Priesthood  ;  Need 

of  a  learned  Clergy  75,  76 

Paper  read  at  the  Lambeth  Conference,  September,  1878  .  .  76 — 80 
Condition  of  the  Priesthood  in  the  East — in  Italy  (recent  unhappy 

measures  in  that  country) — in  France       .       .       .  76,  77 

In  Protestant  Germany  77 

Critical  position  of  the  Anglican  Church  78 

What  is  to  be  done  ?  "•  .       .  .79 

Appeal  to  the  past  79 

Result  of  controversies  79 

The  Latter  Days  80 

Reference  to  the  Abbe  Bougaud's  recent  work,  "  Le  Grand  Peril  de 

l'gglise  de  France"   80,  81 


Contents. 


vii 


PAGE 

Reasons  of  his  alarm       ........      81,  82 

To  what  is  the  clanger  really  due  ?   .       .       .       .       •       •  .81 

M.  Eugene  Reveillaud  ;  "  La  Question  Religieuse  "  .       .       .      80,  81 
His  avowals  and  suggestions    ........  81 

Essays  in  the  "  Courrier  de  Lyon  " — their  confessions  .  .  .81 
Practical  inferences  from  these  writings  in  relation  to  the  Church 

of  England  81,82 

On  the  Destiny  of  Mohammedanism,  especially  in  the  Turkish 

Dominions       ..........  85 

Arguments  on  behalf  of  the  application  of  the  Ninth  Chapter  of  the 

Book  of  Revelation  to  this  subject ;  and  authorities  for  it' .  .  85 
Explanation  of  the  prophecy  in  detail,  and  evidence  of  its  fulfilment  83 — 89 

Character  of  Mohammedan  Rule  90 

Titles  of  Sultan  93 

Janissaries      ...........  95 

"  Passing  away  "  of  Mohammedanism    ....  96,97 

Practical  inferences  and  anticipations  from  this  prophecy  97 — 99 

Acquisition  of  Cyprus  by  England  ....  .  99 

The  decline  of  Mohammedanism  a  Signal  for  a  greater  Spread 

of  the  Gospel  ;  which  will  be  to  some  a  Woe  ....  100 
Meaning  of  the  Seven  successive  Trumpets  in  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation  100,  101 

The  last  Three  Trumpets  are  called  Trumpets  of  Woe       .       .       .  101 
On  the  Sixth  Trumpet,  or  second  Trumpet  of  Woe    ....  101 

Its  meaning    ..........  101 — 116 

The  Sixth  Angel  is  an  Angel  of  God ;  he  is  commanded  by  a  divine 

Voice  to  loose  the  four  Angels,  who  are  Angels  of  God  .  101,  102 
The  four  Angels  are  to  be  loosed,  who  have  been  bound  at  the  river 

Euphrates.    What  is  the  meaning  of  this  ?  102 — 105 

How  it  is  now  being  fulfilled  ......       .105 — 111 

The  propriety  of  the  terrible  imagery  of  the  Vision  .       .       .106 — 110 
How  the  Word  of  God  may  become  a  Woe      ....  108 — 110 

Present  circulation  of  copies  of  the  Bible  ......  108 

Why  compared  to  an  Army  108 — 110 

God's  gifts  to  men  are  as  they  are  used ;  either  for  weal  or  woe  .  110 — 112 
The  solemn  warning  of  this  Prophecy  ;  present  need  of  it  .  .  112,113 
Practical  application  of  it  to  the  present  moral,  social,  and  religious 

condition  of  Christendom ;  and  specially  of  England  as  a  State 

and  a  Church  112—116 

Conclusion      ..........  115,  116 

Bishop  Sanderson  ;  on  Human  Conscience  and  Law      .      .  116 

His  life ;  his  Lectures  at  Oxford  116,  121 

Value  of  his  "  Lectures  on  Conscience "  Dr.  Whewell ;  Bishop 

Barlow  118,  119 

Sanderson's  acts  and  profession  of  faith  .....  120,121 
Reasons  for  publishing  an  English  translation  of  these  Lectures  121,  122 
Bishop  Jacobson's  character  of  Bishop  Sanderson     ....  123 


viii 


Contents. 


PAGE 

On  Ecclesiastical  Legislation  124 

Observations  on  the  "  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill "    .       .  124 — 132 

Rights  of  Convocation  .  126 — 130 

Its  relation  to  Parliament  128 — 134 

Dr.  Johnson  on  Convocation    ........  130 

Withdrawal  of  Amendments    ........  131 

How  we  may  gratify  Romanists,  and  promote  Romanism  .  .  127,  134 
Precedents  as  to  mode  of  Parliamentary  Legislation  on  Ecclesiastical 

matters — "Act  of  Uniformity,"  "Comprehension  Bill,"  "Act  of 

Uniformity  Amendment  Act "  ....  132,133,145 

"  Senates  and  Synods "     .       .  134 

What  action  on  the  part  of  the  Church  was  requisite  as  co-ordinate 

with  such  a  Statute  as  the  "  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill "  .  135 
Wisdom  of"  Toleration  by  Law  " — in  certain  ritual  matters    .  136 — 138 

Position  of  Celebrant       .       .  136—138 

Use  of  a  distinctive  Eucbaristic  vestment ;  the  Cope  .  .  138,  139 
Discretionary  Power  of  the  Bishops  under  the  "  Public  Worship 

Regulation  Act"      ........  139,  note 

What  is  to  be  done  ?  139—141 

Appeal  to  Reformers  and  Revisers   ......  140,  141 

Ecclesiastical  Jurisdiction  142 

On  the  authority  of  the  present  Court  of  Arches  ;  and  of  the  Crown, 

advised  by  the  Judicial  Committee  of  Privy  Council  .  .  .  142 
Ought  this  authority  to  be  resisted,  on  the  plea  of  Zeal  for  the  honour 

of  our  Lord  and  His  Church  142 — 149 

Fundamental  principles  to  be  borne  in  mind  ....  140 — 144 
The  "Laws  of  England"  are  the  "King's  Laws;"  the  Courts  of 

England  are  "  the  King's  Courts  "    .....  143,144 
Whence  do  Bishops  derive  their  authority       ....  144,  150 
Are  the  sentences  of  the  Court  of  Arches,  and  of  the  Judicial  Com- 
mittee, "  spiritually  null  and  void  ?  "        .       .       .  145 — 147,149 

Duty  of  Bishops  and  Clergy  147 

Examples  of  our  Lord  and  of  the  Apostles       .....  149 

What  is  to  be  done  ?  149,  150 

Appeal  to  Bishop  Sanderson;  to  Richard  Hooker;  to  Bishop 
Andrewes ;  to  Bishop  Stillingfleet ;  to  King  Charles  I.;  to 
Chief  Justice  Coke  ;  Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon  ;  Sir  Roger 
Twysden  150—164 

On  Diocesan  Synods  and  Diocesan  Conferences      .      .      .  165 
Authorities  on  Diocesan  Synods      .....       .155 — 160 

On   the   right   constitution  of  "  Diocesan   Sj'nods ; "  Archbishop 

Wake   166,  157,  159,  160 

Diocesan    Synods   differ  from   Diocesan    Conferences ;    in  what 

respect?   .  .160—164 

Proceedings  of  a  Diocesan  Synod  163,  164 

Practical  results  at  Lincoln      ........  165 


Contents.  ix 

PAGE 

Ok  the  Sale  of  Church  Patronage,  and  ox  Simony   .160 — 190 
Church  Patronage  in  Scotland        .......  167 

History  of — and  Warnings  from  :  allegations  of  Nonconformists  .  168 
The  Ecclesiastical  Gazette;  Simoniacal  Advertisements.   168, 169,  185 

The  Church  condemns  Simony  171 — 175 

Unwise  alteration  of  the  40th  Canon  172 

Books  on  Simony  173,  note 

What  is  Simon//  ?  173 

Fallacies  as  to  it  173 — 175 

Laws  of  the  Church  of  England  as  to  Simony  ;  and  opinions  of  the 

English  Reformers  thereon       .       .       .  .       .  176 — 178 

What  is  to  he  done  ?       .    '    .       .       .  .  178 

By  Legislation  178—180 

As  to  bonds  of  Resignation      .       .       .       .  .       .       .  181 

And  Donatives        ..........  181 

By  Individuals        ..........  181 

By  Patrons  181—186 

What  the  words  Advowson  and  Patron  really  mean       .      .  182,183 

By  Lawyers    .       .       .  .  -     .  '  184 

By  Newspapers       ..........  185 

By  Bishops  and  Clergy  185—190 

Act  of  Institution    ..........  186 

Appeal  to  the  Clergy  187—190 

Prayer  190 

On  Clerical  non-residence  191 

Occasion  of  this  Appeal    .........  191 

The  words  of  our  Blessed  Lord  ........  192 

Questions  proposed  for  consideration — The  future  reckoning     .  192,  193 
A  "  non-resident  Incumbent  "  a  contradiction  in  terms     .       .       .  193 
Ordination  Service  ..........  193 

Words  of  Ezekiel  to  such  as  do  not  feed  their  flock  .       .       .  .191. 

St.  Paul's  language  .........  194,  195 

Bishop  Burnet's  comment  upon  it    .       .       .       .       .       .  195,  196 

Bodily  incapacity  does  not  justify  non-residence      .       .       .  197,  198 
Bishop  Gibson's  words     ........  198,  note 

Laws  on  non-residence  .......  198,  200 

The  "  Incumbents  Resignation  Act  "  201 

Conclusion       ...........  201 

On  Marriage  and  Divorce  202 

Occasion  of  this  discourse .       ........  201 

Debates  on  the  Divorce  Bill   202,  2f  3 

Reflexions  on  the  "Declaration"  upon  it  (a.d.  1857)  .  .  .  203 
Institution  and  History  of  Marriage  in  Scripture  .  .  .  203,  204 
Legal  practice  with  regard  to,  in  England       .       .       .       .  .205 

Creation  of  a  "  Divorce  Court  "  205 

Gravity  of  questions  involved  206 


X 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Our  Lord's  declarations  on  the  subject,   in   the  Gospel  of  St. 

Matthew  207—211 

In  the  Gospels  of  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  211 

Theory  of  the  Church  of  Rome  210-212 

Her  inconsistent  practice         .......  212,  222 

Inferences  to  be  derived  from  our  Lord's  statements  in  St.  Matthew's 

Gospel,  as  compared  with  His  declarations  in  St.  Mark  and  St. 

Luke  212—216 

Patristic   testimonies  on  the  subject — S.   Augustine,  Tcrtullian, 

Lactantius,  in  the  Western  Church  ......  217 

Council  of  Aries  217 

S.  Basil,  S.  Chrysostom,  S.  Epiphanius,  Theodoret,  Euthymius 

Zygabenus  in  the  East  217,  218 

Thomassinus,  Launoy,  Bingham      .......  218 

Anglican  Divines — Bishop  Hall,  Dr.  Hammond,  Herbert  Thorndike, 

Bishop  Taylor,  Bishop  Cosin,  Bishop  Horsley  .  .  .  218—221 
Consequences  of  contending  for  the  unqualified  indissolubility  of 

Marriage  222 

On  Marriage  with  a  divorced  person     ......  223 

Our  Lord's  words — their  real  meaning     .....  223,  224 

What  might  have  been  St.  Augustine's  opinion  on  them,  if  he  had 

argued  from  the  original  Greek,  or  had  possessed  an  adequate 


translation  of  them  in  Latin 
Grounds  of  our  Lord's  prohibition  . 
S.  Augustine's  Mother — Example  of 
What  is  the  cause  of  Adultery  ? 
How  Adultery  was  treated  under  the  Levitical  Law 
And  by  our  Reformers  ..... 
What  is  the  true  remedy  for  guilt  ?  . 
Law  and  practice  of  Rome — results  of 
Law  and  practice  of  Germany  (Baron  von  Gerlach ) 
Law  and  practice  of  England  .... 
Good  results  of  indissolubility  of  Marriage,  except  for 
What  will  be  the  results  of  a  Divorce  Court  ?  . 
Appeal  to  the  Legislature  .... 
Appeal  on  behalf  of  the  Church  and  the  Clergy 
Reference  to  Archbishop  Laud — his  prayer 
Gravity  of  the  Crisis  (1857)  ;  England's  duty  . 


esults  of 


Adultery 


223,  note 
.  225 
.  226 
225—228 
.  225 
.  229 
.  229 
.  229 
.  230 
.  231 

231,  232 
.  233 

233,  234 
.  234 

234,  235 

235,  236 


On  Marriage  with  a  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  ....  237 
True  character  of  the  Code  of  Leviticus,  chap,  xviii.  .       .       .  237 — 241 

"  Table  of  prohibited  Degrees,"  authority  of  238 

The  extermination  of  the  Canaanites,  a  warning  to  England  .  238 — 240 
The  meaning  of  the  Bible  how  to  be  ascertained ;   Our  Lord's 

practice  240—242 

Your  wife's  sister  is  your  sister  241 

Proof  that  a  man  may  not  marry  his  wife's  sister    .       .       .  241 — 243 


Contents. 


xi 


PAGE 

Bishop  Jewel   .       .  243 

Allegations  against  this  statement  examined    ....  244 — 246 

The  meaning  of  Leviticus  xviii.  18  .       .       .       .       .       .  246 — 248 

Authority  of  the  Rahbis  considered  .......  250 

Testimony  of  the  Church  against  the  Marriage  of  a  deceased  wife's 

sister      ...........  250 

Law  and  Practice  of  the  Church  of  Rome  '  .       .       .       .  251 

Case  of  those  who  have  contracted  these  Marriages  .       .       .  252,  253 
Testimony  of  Reformers  .........  252 

The  Social  aspect  of  the  question     .......  253 

Consequences  of  the  repeal  of  the  Law  which  prohibits  these  Marriages  254 
Reference  to  the  position  of  the  Clergy,  as  it  would  be  affected  by 

the  repeal  of  the  Law   255 

Conclusion   255,  256 

On  Enforced  Clerical  Celibacy  257 

Letter  upon  it  to  the  Cologne  Congress — occasion  of  258 
Testimony  of  Scripture    ........  258,  259 

Practice  of  ancient  Church      .......  259,  260 

Translation  of  the  Letter       .......  261 — 265 

Decision  of  the  "  Old  Catholics  266 

On  Sisterhoods  and  Vows  267 

Letter  to  Sir  George  Prevost — occasion  of  .....  268 
Value  of  English  Sisterhoods   ...       .....  268 

Appeal  to  Holy  Scripture   268,  269 

St.  Paul's  command  concerning  Vows  of  Celibacy  for  Women  .  269,  287 
Testimonies  of  the  Primitive  Church  .....  270,271 
Doctrine  of  S.  Ambrose,  S.  Basil,  S.  Jerome,  S.  Augustine  ;  and  decrees 

of  Councils  concerning  Virgins  .       ....       .271 — 274 

Results  of  the  system      .       .       .       .       *  .       .  .275 

On  the  terms  "  Sister,"  and  "  Sisterhood  "  275 

Contrast  between  the  practice  of  some  English  Sisters  and  that  of 

the  Virgins  of  the  ancient  Church    ....       .275  —  277 

"  Sisters  of  Charity  " — S.  Vincent  de  Paul — his  wise  rule       .  278 — 2S0 
On  Vows  of  Obedience  and  Poverty        ......  280 

Practical  suggestions  as  to  English  Sisterhoods        .       .       .  280 — 282 

On  the  relaxation  of  Vows  282—286 

Notice  of  the  Sev.   Canon  Carter's  remarks  on  the  foregoing 

Letter     .  286—289 

Difference  between  an  intention  and  a  vote      ....  288,  289 

On  English  Cathedrals  290 

Publication  of  the  Statutes  of  Lincoln  Cathedral,  Preface  to  .  290 — 292 
Table  of  Contents  of  Lincoln  Cathedral  Statutes      .        .       .  293—301 
Address  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Lincoln  Cathedral    .       .  .302 
Visitation  of  the  Cathedral      .......  302,  303 

Definition  of  a  Cathedral,  as  distinguished  from  a  Parish  Church  .  304 
Relation  of  the  Bishop  to  the  Chapter  306 


xii 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Honorary  Canons   306,  note 

Constitution  of  Lincoln  Cathedral — Definition  of  Chapter  .  307 — 310 
Residence  of  dignitaries  .........  308 

The  Dean  308 

The  Precentor  308 

The  Chancellor       .       .       .       .       '.  309 

Lincoln  and  Iceland  309 

The  Treasurer  309 

The  Archdeacon  310 

Canons  and  Prebendaries        ........  310 

Vicars  311 

Causes  of  Decay  of  Cathedrals  .       .......  312 

The  Bishop  312 

By  the  Statutes,  each  Dignitary  has  specific  duties  ....  312 

Act  of  1840   314 

Church  Commissioners    ........  315,  316 

Cathedral  Commissioners  ........  315,  316 

Term  "  Canon  "  317 

Practical  suggestions  ■        318 — 322 

The  Bishop's  relation  to  the  Cathedral  319 

Chancellor  Massingberd  320 

"  Concilium  Episcopi  "   320,  321 

Other  suggestions    .........  321 — 323 

"  Articles  of  Inquiry  "  at  the  Visitation  of  the  Cathedral      .  323 — 325 

On  the  Studies  of  the  Clergy  326 

Books  recommended        ........  329,  330 

George  Herbert — John  Keble  ........  331 

Suggestions — County  History,  &c.  .......  332 

Domestic  Economy — Marriage  .......  333,  334 

Speculation  ;  debt — George  Herbert's  advice     .....  335 

"  Association  for  Augmentation  of  Incomes  of  Poor  Benefices  "        .  335 

The  Mission  at  Lincoln,  1876    337 

Pastoral  before  the  Mission  337—342 

Prayers  for  the  Mission  ........  342,343 

Address  in  the  Cathedral  to  Missioners  and  Church- Workers   .  344 — 349 
St.  Paul's  Missionary  method  ........  347 

Address  in  the  Cathedral  to  the  People  during  the  Mission  .  350 — 363 
The  two  Great  Missioners,  and  Missions  .....  350 — 356 

Fruits  of  a  Mission  355—362 

Prayer  after  the  Mission  363 

Pastoral  after  the  Mission       .       .       ...       .       .       .  363—367 

Pastoral  to  Wesleyan  Methodists  368 

Preface  to  it  368-380 

"  Why  dees  a  Bishop  write  a  Pastoral  to  the  Wesleyans  "        .       .  368 

To  what  is  Wesleyanism  due  ?   368,  373 

"  Why  does  Augustine  trouble  us  ?  "  369 


Contents.  xiii 

PAGE 

His  answer  to  the  question      ......  .309—372 

St.  Augustine  and  the  Donatists      ......  309 — 372 

Application  to  the  present  case — Appeal  to  the  Wesleyans  .  372,  373 
Allegations  against  the  Church       .......  373 

What  is  Schism   374,  375,  378 

Apostolical  Succession      ......  374,  375,  389—392 

Can  Presbyters  ordain  P    ........  375 

The  Wesleyans  have  not  Presbyterian  Ordination    .       .       .  375 — 377 
The  title  of "  Reverend " .       .       .       .  '  .       .       .       .  376 

Stillingfleet's  "  Irenicum  "       ........  377 

Do  Wesleyans  follow  Wesley?  ........  377 

Case  of  Leighton  and  of  Patrick      ......  377,378 

Difference  between  English  Wesleyans  and  foreign  non-Episcopal 

Communities    .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  378 

Protestantism  weakened,  and  Romanism  and  Infidelity  strengthened, 

by  the  divisions  of  Protestants   .  378 

Is  Union  possible  ?..........  378 

Work  of  the  Church  in  Lincoln  Diocese;  occasion  of  the  Pastoral  380,  389 
Confirmation  at  Epworth — Wesley's  birthplace        ....  381 

In  what  sense  are  Wesleyans  united  with  the  Church  .  .  .  381 
John  Wesley  at  Epworth.    What  would  he  now  see  there       .  381,  382 

Splits  in  Methodism  381 

Would  John  Wesley  be  a  Wesleyan  ?  382 

Wesley's  Language  on  Separation  from  the  Church,  and  on  his  own 

Preachers .       .       .       ,       .....         382, 383 

His  language  and  acts     ........  382 — 385 

Wesley's  Sermon  on  the  Christian  Priesthood  ....  383 — 3S6 

Wesley  the  Friend  of  Lay  Preachers     ......  385 

Alteration  of  his  Epitaph        ........  385 

His  words  on  Schism       .........  386 

What  would  Wesley  say  to  Wesleyanism  .....  386,  387 

Arguments  of  Wesleyans  considered        .       .  .  .  387 

On  Sacraments  received  in  Schism   .......  387 

Is  Separation  from  the  Church  of  England  to  be  justified  from  the 

English  Reformation  ?........  388 

What  is  to  be  done?  389 

Prayer  391 

Repentance  391 

By  the  Wesleyans  391 

Their  position  391—393 

By  Bishops  and  Clergy — Reflections  on  the  Past     .  .       .  392 

By  the  Laity  392 

Position  of  their  Ministers   393,  394 

John  Wesley's  Ordinations      .......  394,  395 

Charles  Wesley.    Dr.  Coke  394 

Appeal  to  Holy  Scripture,  to  Church  History,  and  to  the  Head  of 

the  Church  396 


XIV 


Contents. 


PAGE 

On  the  Burials  Question  396—400,  429 

Resolution  passed  at  the  Lincoln  Diocesan  Conference     .       .       .  400 

On  Labour  and  Capital  401 

Agricultural  and  commercial  distress — moral  causes  of  .  .  401,  402 
Practical  inferences  ..........  402 

Struggle  between  Labour  and  Capital  402 

Christian  Principles  applied  to  it   403,  404 

.Appeal  to  Christian  Capitalists,  and  to  others  404 

"What  is  to  be  done  ?  404—407 

On  Capital  Punishment      .      .  408 

Allegations  against  the  translation — in  our  Bible — of  the  text  in 

Gen.  ix.  6  408 

The  true  state  of  the  case  408 — 411 

Objections  to  Capital  Punishment    .......  412 

Consideration  of  objections  to  it,  on  grounds  of  mercy  and  of 

justice  413 — 416 

The  real  character  of  Murder  412 — 414 

The  true  office  of  the  Christian  Magistrate       ....  416,  417 

True  Sympathy  417,  418 

On  Penal  Servitude  and  Solitary  Confinement,  as  compared  with 

Capital  punishment  .........  419 

Results  of  the  abolition  of  Capital  punishment .....  420 

The  true  method  to  be  used  for  the  abolition  of  Capital  Punishment .  421 
Conclusion  421 

On  the  Church  of  England,  past,  present,  and  future     .      .  422 

Reflexions  at  Cambridge,  Nov.  18,  1877    422 

Retrospect  of  the  last  half  century    .......  423 

Change  in  popular  view  as  to  the  foundation  of  Authority       .       .  423 
Daniel's  prophetic  description  of  the  Dynasties  of  the  latter  days      .  423 
Two  forces  opposed  to   Lawful   Authority — Papal   and  Popular 

Supremacy       ..........  424 

Change  in  the  position  of  the  English  Church,  how  produced  by 

political  changes  in  the  Imperial  Legislature 
Disestablishment  of  Irish  Church — Changes  in  Cathedral  Bodies —  . 
Marriage  Law — Popular  Education  ;  Dependency  of  the  English 
Establishment  on  Scotland  and  Ireland    ....  425,  426 

What  are  the  true  grounds  on  which  Authority  rests  ?  427 
The  Establishment  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  Church — not  vice  versa  428 
Benefits  of  the  Establishment  ........  428 

.  428 
.  429 
.  429 
.  430,431 


Probable  evils  of  Disestablishment  . 
Importance  of  the  agricultural  districts  . 
Principles  involved  in  Burials  Bill 
Prospects  of  the  Latter  Days  . 
The  fall  of  Institutions  a  signal  for  the  rising  up  of  Individuals      .  432 
Grounds  of  hope  for  the  future  433 


Contents. 


xv 


PAGE 

Good  elicited  from  evil  in  various  ways  ;  as  to  doctrine,  and  discipline 

and  inner  life  of  the  Church     ......  433,  434 

University  Studies ;  uses  of   434,  435 

Appeal  to  the  rising  generation,  especially  in  the  Universities  .  435,  436 

Continuity  of  the  Church  of  England — St.  Hugh,  Bishop  of 

Lincoln    436 

St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln  436 

Consecration  of  the  Church  of  Clee,  Lincolnshire,  by  him  in  1192  .  436 
Contemporary  inscription  in  the  Church  ......  436 

Address  there  in  July  1878    436 

The  Lives  of  the  Patriarchs  were  prophetical  .....  436 
Mysterious  relation  of  Isaac  to  Abraham  his  father  .       .       .  436,  437 

Moriah  438 

Beersheba  438 

Spiritual  Beershebas  439 

Paradise,  Sinai  »  439 

Work  of  the  Son  of  God,  to  reopen  Beershebas  .       .       .       .       .  439 

Examples — Marriage  439 

Appeal  to  England  440 

Application  to  the  Church  of  England ;  and  to  the  Reformation  440,  441 

Ezek — Sitnah — Rehoboth  441 

Application  to  her  history  441 

Missionary   Enlargements — Colonial  and  American   Episcopate — 

Lambeth  Conference,  1878    441,  442 

Application  to  Clee  Church  ;  and  to  St.  Hugh's  History  .       .       .  442 

His  Apostolic  and  Evangelical  character  443 

Continuity  of  the  Church  of  England ;  as  compared  with  temporal 

dynasties  ...........  443 

Warnings  and  Encouragements  444 

Welcome  from  the  Church  of  England  to  the  Church  of 

America — American  Bishops  at  Lincoln  (July,  1878)      .       .  445 

Record  of  the  Gift  of  the  Eucharistic  Alms-bason  from  the  Church  of 

America  to  the  Church  of  England — Latin  description  of  .       .  445 

English  translation  .........       .  448 

Letter  to  the  Oxford  University  Commissioners  on  Proposed  New 

Statutes  for  Brasenose  and  Lincoln  Colleges  (1879)    .       .       .  450 
The  purposes  for  which  those  Colleges  were  founded  ....  450 

Recent  Sequestration  of  Ecclesiastical  revenues        .       .       .  .451 

Need  of  Endowments  for  the  Education  of  Clergy    ....  452 

Probable  decline  of  sound  scholarship,  and  of  theological  learning,  in 
Candidates  for  Holy  Orders ;  why  to  be  especially  deplored  at 
the  present  time       .........  453 

On  Clerical  Headships  and  Clerical  Fellowships       ....  453 

The  English  Colleges  as  places  of  higher  Education  ....  453 

Reply  to  a  majority  of  a  Governing  Body,  as  to  a  clerical  Headship  .  453 


XVI 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Powers  and  duties  of  Visitors  of  Colleges  transferred  to  the  Commis- 


sioners— Future  prospects  454 

Lettee  of  the  Hundred  Bishops  at  the  Lambeth  Conference,  Jul}', 
1878       .      .   .      .  456 

Greek  and  Latin  translation  of  portions  of  the  Letter       .       .  458 — 172 

On  the  'practical  utility  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Languages  in 

modern  times   .       .........  474 

The  English  Original  of  parts  of  the  "  Lambeth  Letter  "  .       .  475 — 480 

Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Cyprus  481 


RELIGION  IN  SCIENCE. 


Sib  Isaac  Newton  was  bom  at  Woolsthorpe  in  the  parish  of 
Colsterworth,  in  the  county  of  Lincoln,  Dec.  25,  a.d.  1642. 

The  following  words  were  spoken  in  its  church,  on  the 
occasion  of  its  restoration  (mainly  by  the  energy  of  the 
present  Rector,  the  Rev.  John  Mirehouse),  on  July  25, 
1877  (St.  James'  Day),  150  years  after  Newton's  death. 

In  the  nineteenth  Psalm  the  inspired  author  represents 
the  natural  world  and  the  spiritual  world  as  two  books, 
written  by  one  and  the  same  Divine  Hand.  "  The  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God."  The  heavens  have  an  apostolic 
office  ;  they  are  messengers,  heralds,  preachers  of  the  power 
and  love  of  the  Great  Creator,  and  proclaim  His  praise. 
"  Their  sound  is  gone  out  into  all  lands,  and  their  words  into 
the  ends  of  the  world."  The  Holy  Spirit  speaking  by  St. 
Paul  in  the  tenth  chapter  to  the  Romans  teaches  us  to 
make  this  comparison  by  applying  these  words  to  the  first 
preachers  of  the  Gospel  (Rom.  x.  8).  The  Psalmist  also 
compares  days  and  nights  to  Evangelists  announcing  God's 
attributes  in  never-ceasing  homilies  of  silent  eloquence. 
And  he  says  that  in  the  midst  of  this  glorious  system  is 
pavilioned  the  Sun,  joyful  as  a  bridegroom  (words  adopted 
in  the  New  Testament,  and  applied  to  Christ,  John  i.  14 ; 
iii.  29),  and  exulting  as  a  giant  to  do  the  work  of  God  in 
cheering  the  world  with  his  light  and  heat. 

The  Sun  revolves  round  his  axis,  and  although  relatively 
fixed  (or  nearly  so)  as  the  centre  of  our  system,  may  well  be 
said  to  go  forth  by  the  influence  of  gravitation  acting  from 
him  everywhere,  and  by  the  light  and  warmth  of  his  rays 
penetrating  into  every  part  of  that  system. 

Having  described  the  glory  of  the  heavens,  the  Psalmist 
passes  on  to  speak  of  the  spiritual  world.     God,  Who 

VOL.  III.  B 


2 


Miscellanies. 


created  the  heavens,  is  also  (he  says)  the  Lord  Jehovah,  Who 
has  given  a  perfect  Law  to  man.  By  that  Law  He  converts 
and  strengthens  the  soul ;  by  it  He  gives  to  us  wisdom, 
light,  purity,  and  joy ;  He  cleanses  the  heart  and  sanctifies 
the  will ;  and  He  Who  is  the  Creator  and  Sanctifier  of  man, 
is  also  our  Bedeemer ;  and  therefore  the  Psalmist  thus  con- 
cludes his  Divine  strain,  "  Let  the  words  of  my  mouth  and 
the  meditation  of  my  heart  be  alway  acceptable  in  Thy 
sight,  0  Lord,  my  strength  and  my  Redeemer." 

This  Psalm  is  the  first  among  those  which  are  appointed 
by  the  Church  to  be  used  on  the  festival  of  Christmas  Day. 
And  very  fitly;  for  Christ  is  the  Eternal  Word.  St.  John 
declares  that  "all  things  were  made  by  Him"  (John  i.  3), 
and  He,  Who  "  in  the  beginning  was  with  God,  and  Who 
is  God,  became  Man  for  our  sakes"  (John  i.  1,  14).  He  is 
" Emmanuel,  God  with  us "  (Matt.  i.  23);  "God  manifest 
in  the  flesh"  (1  Tim.  iii.  16) ;  "  Of  His  fulness  have  all  we 
received,  and  grace  for  grace"  (John  i.  16);  and  by  His 
Incarnation  He,  Who  is  the  Eternal  and  Almighty  Creator, 
became  to  us  the  Author  and  Giver  of  redemption  and 
sanctification ;  the  Fountain  and  Wellspring  of  light  and 
life,  of  grace  and  wisdom,  of  joy  and  glory  and  immortality 
to  the  mind  and  heart  of  man. 

On  Christmas  Day  Isaac  Newton  was  born  in  the  year 
1 642,  the  year  in  which  his  great  precursor,  Galileo,  died. 
And  no  one  since  the  creation  has  ever  so  clearly  unfolded, 
as  Newton  has  done,  the  laws  by  which  the  material 
World  (of  which  the  Psalmist  speaks  in  the  former  part  of 
this  Psalm)  is  regulated ;  or  has  done  the  work  with  more 
of  that  reverential  and  devout  spirit  of  faith  and  love  which 
is  the  fairest  ornament  of  the  Christian  Philosopher,  and 
which  is  the  genuine  fruit  of  that  Divine  grace  and  illumi- 
nation which  the  Psalmist  describes  in  the  latter  portion  of 
this  same  sacred  hymn,  and  which  beamed  on  the  world  in 
Divine  effulgence  at  the  birth  of  Christ. 

The  thoughts  which  the  Psalmist  appears  to  suggest  to  us 
are  as  follows  :  — 

Inasmuch  as  the  natural  World  and  the  spiritual  World 
are  from  the  same  Divine  Being,  it  is  probable  that  the 


The  Newtonian  System  and  Christianity. 


more  we  examine  them  both,  the  more  evidences  we  shall 
recognize  of  similarity  of  plan,  and  of  manifold  analogies 
between  them.  In  a  word,  is  it  not  likely  that  the  natural 
ivorld  (if  we  may  so  speak)  is  a  great  parable — a  parable  of 
the  ivorld  of  grace  ?  The  wise  son  of  Sirach  has  said  that 
"  all  things  are  double  one  against  another,  and  God  hath 
made  nothing  imperfect"  (Ecclus.  xlii.  24) ;  and  therefore  he 
says,  "  So  look  on  all  the  works  of  the  Most  High,  and  there 
are  two  and  two,  one  against  another"  (Ecclus.  xxxiii.  15). 
We  know  what  uses  were  made  of  these  wise  sayings  1  by 
our  own  great  moralist  and  metaphysician,  Bishop  Butler, 
in  his  "  Analogy  of  Religion,  Natural  and  Revealed,"  and 
how  he  has  applied  these  principles  in  that  work  for  the 
refutation  of  sceptical  objections  to  Christianity,  and  for  the 
confirmation  of  Scriptural  truths. 

Let  me  now  invite  you  to  consider  this.  If  the  Newtonian 
Philosophy,  with  regard  to  natural  phenomena,  is  true  (as 
we  believe  it  to  be),  may  we  not  expect  to  find  analogies 
and  correspondences  between  it  and  Christianity  ?  May  we 
not  expect  to  recognize  analogies  there  which  we  do  not 
find  between  any  other  system  of  Natural  Philosophy  and 
Christianity  ? 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  an  example. 

Previously  to  the  age  of  Isaac  Newton  the  physical  system 
generally  accepted  in  our  schools  of  science  was  the  Ptolemaic; 
according  to  which  the  Earth  was  the  centre  around  which 
the  heavenly  bodies  revolved.  But  Newton  demonstrated 
the  error  of  that  system,  and  established  the  truth  of  the 
Copernican  system,  which  had  been  propounded  more  than 
two  thousand  years  before  by  Pythagoras,  and  according  to 
which  the  Sun  is  the  centre,  around  which  the  Earth  and 
other  planetary  bodies,  with  their  satellites,  revolve. 

'  See  Bishop  Halifax,  Preface  to  his  edition  of  Butler's  Works,  p.  xxix, 
ed.  Oxford,  1820.  Bishop  Butler  (Introd.  to  "Analogy,"  p.  7,  ibid.) 
ascribes  also  his  own  argument  in  part  to  a  suggestion  of  Origen,  who, 
"  from  analogical  reasoning,  has  with  singular  sagacity  observed  that  lie 
who  believes  the  Scripture  to  have  proceeded  from  Him  Who  is  the 
Author  of  Nature,  may  well  expect  to  find  the  same  sort  of  difficulties  in 
it  as  are  found  in  the  constitution  of  Nature." 

B  2 


4 


Miscellanies. 


Newton  also  proved  that  the  Earth,  with  her  satellite  the 
Moon,  and  the  other  Planets  with  their  satellites,  are  not 
luminous,  but  opaque,  or  dark,  bodies ;  that  they  have  no 
light  of  their  own,  and  that  they  receive  all  their  light,  and 
all  their  warmth  also,  from  the  Sun,  the  centre  of  them  all. 

He  also  proved  that  they  moved  in  one  and  the  same 
direction  (that  is,  from  west  to  east),  and  that  they  all  move 
around  their  axes  in  the  same  direction. 

Now,  if  we  open  our  Bibles,  we  shall,  I  think,  perceive 
that  the  system  of  Nature,  as  explained  by  Newton,  is  a 
parable  of  what  we  read  in  Holy  Scripture  concerning  the 
spiritual  world.  In  Holy  Scripture  our  Blessed  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ  is  called  "  the  Sun  of  Ri  gldeousness  " 
(Mai.  iv.  2).  He  is  "  the  Light  of  the  world  "  (John  viii.  12  ; 
ix.  5  ;  xii.  46).  He  it  is  (says  St.  John)  Who  is  "  the  true 
Light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world  " 
(John  i.  9). 

At  the  Transfiguration,  Moses  and  Elias,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  those  who  lived  under  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets,  shone  with  heavenly  radiance  beaming  forth  from 
the  glory  of  Christ  (Luke  ix.  28,  SI),  Whose  "  face  did  shine 
as  the  sun"  (Matt.  xvii.  2.)  "  Arise,  shine,  for  Thy  light 
is  come,"  says  Isaiah  (lx.  1),  prophesying  of  Christ;  and 
"  Awake  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and 
Christ  shall  give  thee  light,"  exclaims  the  Apostle  St.  Paul 
(Ephes.  v.  14).  All  these  Scriptural  expressions,  derived 
from  the  natural  World,  would  become  meaningless  and 
incongruous,  if  we  were  to  accept  the  Ptolemaic  system, 
which  makes  the  Earth  to  be  the  centre,  and  the  Sun  and 
other  heavenly  bodies  to  be  subordinate  and  tributary  to  it. 
But  how  beautiful  and  appropriate  are  they  seen  to  be 
according  to  the  Newtonian  system,  which  makes  the  Sun 
(the  Scriptural  emblem  of  Christ)  to  be  the  one  centre, 
around  which  the  Earth,  with  her  satellite  the  Moon,  and 
the  other  Planets  revolve ;  and  to  be  also  the  one  fountain 
and  wellspring  from  which  they  derive  their  light  and  their 
warmth  !  Might  we  not  say  that  if  we  accept  the  Psalmist's 
assertion  that  the  two  worlds  of  Nature  and  of  Grace  are 
like  two  volumes  written  by  one  and  the  same  Divine  Hand, 


The  Books  of  Nature  and  Scripture  agree.  5 


and  are  therefore  in  perfect  accordance  and  beautiful  har- 
mony with  each  other,  we  might  almost  have  anticipated  and 
divined  a  priori  the  Newtonian  theory  as  opposed  to  the 
Ptolemaic  ?  However  this  may  be,  we  recognize  at  once 
with  thankfulness  and  joy  the  phenomena  of  the  Natural 
World,  when  explained  by  Isaac  Newton,  as  analogous  to, 
and  corresponding  with,  the  revelations  in  both  Testaments 
concerning  Christ,  the  central  Solar  Orb,  around  which 
this  dark  and  cold  Planet  of  our  own  spiritual  being,  and 
the  Moon  of  the  Church  herself  (also  dark  and  cold  with- 
out Christ),  and  other  planetary  existences  of  spiritual 
life,  revolve  in  their  appointed  orbits,  and  from  which  central 
solar  orb  of  Christ  they  derive  all  the  light  and  warmth  of 
spiritual  grace  which  they  enjoy.  May  we  not  say,  therefore, 
that  Isaac  Newton  was  not  only  an  interpreter  of  Nature, 
but  became  an  expositor  of  Scripture  also  ?  And  may  we 
not  cherish  the  hope,  that  if  it  ever  should  please  God  to 
raise  up  other  Newtons  to  unfold  the  secrets  of  Nature  to 
our  view,  we  may  receive  indirectly,  by  their  means,  fresh 
elucidations  of  divine  beauty  and  truth  in  the  mysteries  of 
the  world  of  grace  as  revealed  in  the  Bible  ? 

Let  me  now  ask  you  to  consider,  how  in  another  respect 
the  phenomena  of  Nature,  as  explained  by  the  philosophy 
of  Newton,  are  like  types  and  symbols  of  divine  operations 
in  the  spiritual  world. 

Before  the  time  of  Newton  it  was  generally  supposed 
that  the  celestial  bodies  in  our  system  were  subjected  to  a 
different  law  from  that  which  regulated  terrestrial  things. 
This  was  the  Aristotelian  theory;  and  as  long  as  it  pre- 
vailed, an  impassable  gulf  of  separation  existed  between 
heavenly  and  earthly  mechanics,  and  there  was  little  hope 
of  successful  research  with  regard  to  the  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  of  our  system. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  Newton's  discoveries  was  that 
every  particle  of  matter  in  our  system  attracts  every  other 
particle,  and  is  attracted  by  it;  and  that  the  heavenly  bodies 
of  our  system  are  governed  by  the  same  law  which  controls 
material  substances  upon  earth  ;  and  that  this  law,  the  law 
of  gravitation,  which  brings  the  apple  down   from  the 


6 


Miscellanies. 


branch  of  the  tree,  is  the  same  law  as  that  which  regulates 
the  Earth  and  other  Planets  in  their  orbits  around  the  Sun, 
and  even  acts  on  what  seem  most  erratic,  the  Comets  them- 
selves. And  not  only  so,  but  that  it  acts  in  the  same 
manner,  and  in  the  same  degree,  in  every  part  of  the  system, 
namely,  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the  square  of  the  distance 
from  the  object  on  which  it  acts.  Consequently,  the  more 
distant  a  planet  is  from  the  sun,  the  more  slow  is  its  course  in 
its  orbit ;  and  this  variation  of  velocity  is  graduated  according 
to  a  certain  uniform  law,  expressed  in  the  formula  that  the 
squares  of  the  times  of  the  revolutions  of  the  planets  round 
the  sun  vary  as  the  cubes  of  their  distances  from  it. 

Perhaps  the  time  may  come  when  it  may  be  recognized 
that  these  physical  laws  have  their  counterparts  in  the 
world  of  grace.  "We  now  see  through  a  glass  darkly" 
(1  Cor.  xiii.  12).  But  even  now,  with  our  feeble  powers, 
we  perceive  some  faint  gleams  and  glimpses  of  them  in  the 
spiritual  world. 

For  example,  the  Motion  of  the  Earth  round  the  Sun  in  a 
curved  elliptical  orbit  is,  according  to  the  Newtonian  philo- 
sophy, produced  by  the  composite  action  of  two  forces,  the  one 
original,  and  which  was  applied  once  for  all,  but  ever  acts  ; 
the  other  constant,  and  continually  applied  at  every  moment. 
The  one  original  force  is  that  force  of  projection  by  which 
the  Earth  was,  as  it  were,  launched  at  the  Creation,  like  a 
ball  from  the  hand  of  the  Creator,  according  to  which  it 
would  (if  left  to  itself)  have  travelled  in  a  straight  line 
through  the  medium  of  an  unresisting  ether  for  ever;  the 
other  force  is  that  of  gravity,  by  which  it  is  continually  acted 
upon  by  the  Sun ;  and  thus  its  course  is  modified,  and  by  the 
joint  action  of  these  two  forces  it  is  kept,  with  hardly  any 
deviation,  in  its  elliptical  orbit  around  the  Snn,  in  which  it 
has  travelled  for  nearly  six  thousand  years,  and  in  which  it 
goes  on  travelling,  with  undisturbed  velocity,  in  quietness 
and  peace. 

Let  us  now  open  our  Bibles.  It  is  God's  will  that  man's 
will  should  he  free.  Left  to  himself,  Man  moves  in  the 
straight  line  of  freedom,  derived  (if  we  may  so  speak)  from 
the  projectile  force  by  which  he  came  forth  originally  from 


II uman  Free  Will  and  Divine  Grace. 


the  hand  of  the  Creator.  But  in  order  that  human  free-vjill 
may  be  exercised  aright,  so  as  to  keep  man  in  the  orbit  of 
duty,  he  needs  the  continual  influence  of  Divine  Grace, 
operatiug  upon  him,  as  it  were,  by  centripetal  force.  He 
needs  the  spiritual  gravitation  of  grace,  attracting  him  to 
the  central  solar  orb  of  the  system,  which  is  Christ.  The 
Apostle  St.  Paul  describes  the  action  of  these  two  com- 
posite forces  of  human  will  and  Divine  grace,  when  he  says, 
"  I  laboured  more  abundantly  than  they  all ;  yet  not  I,  but 
the  grace  of  God  that  was  with  me ;"  "I  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ"  (1  Cor.  xv.  10.  Phil.  iv.  13).  And  he 
i*ecognizes  the  union,  and  co-operation,  of  Divine  grace 
with  the  human  will  in  the  tenour  of  a  holy  life  when  he 
says,  "  Work  out  your  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling,  for 
it  is  God  that  woiketh  in  you  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good 
pleasure  "  (Phil.  ii.  13). 

Again,  the  velocity  of  the  course  of  the  Earth  and  other 
Planets,  as  well  as  their  light  and  heat,  depends  on  their 
nearness  to  the  Sun.  And  who  knows  not  that  the  more 
nearly  we  are  brought  to  Christ,  the  more  rapid  and  cheerful 
is  our  course  in  the  orbit  of  our  Christian  duty ;  and  the 
more  distant  we  are  from  Christ,  the  slower  do  we  become 
in  our  ways  and  works  of  spiritual  life  ?  But,  although  the 
Earth  travels  with  different  degrees  of  velocity  in  different 
parts  of  its  orbit  round  the  sun,  yet  it  has  been  proved  that 
it  describes  equal  areas  in  equal  times.  May  we  not  see  a 
counterpart  to  this  also  in  the  World  of  Grace  ?  If,  like  the 
planetary  bodies,  we  are  moving  in  the  orbit  of  duty,  ac- 
cording to  God's  will — though  we  may  move  with  more  or 
less  rapidity  at  different  times,  yet  in  God's  eye  the  area 
of  our  work  is  equal.  Holy  old  age  is  no  less  acceptable 
to  God  than  heroic  youth.  Moses  praying  on  the  hill,  no 
less  than  Joshua  fighting  on  the  plain,  works  for  Israel 
against  Amalek.  The  Simeons  and  Annas  of  the  Church 
serve  no  less  than  the  Peters  and  Pauls.  The  contemplative 
love  of  St.  John  works  with  the  practical  zeal  of  St.  Peter. 
The  law  in  the  army  of  God's  Church  is  expressed  by  the 
command  of  David  to  his  men,  "  As  his  part  is  that  goeth 
down  to  the  battle,  so  shall  his  part  be  that  tarrieth  by  the 


8 


Miscellanies. 


stuff:  they  shall  part  alike.  This  is  a  statute  for  Israel " 
(1  Sam.  xxx.  24,  25). 

Again,  that  theory  of  physical  science  which  represents 
the  world  in  which  we  live  as  the  result  of  the  concourse  of 
independent  atoms, — the  Epicurean  theory ;  and  that  other 
theory  of  vortices, — the  Cartesian,  and  the  more  recent 
theory  of  spontaneous  evolution,  have  no  counterpart  in  the 
spiritual  world  as  revealed  to  us  in  Holy  Scripture.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  discovery  made  by  Isaac  Newton  that 
every  particle  of  matter  is  connected  with  every  other  par- 
ticle, and  acts  upon  it,  and  that  thus  these  particles  together 
form  one  grand  harmonious  whole,  has  a  beautiful  antitype,  if 
we  may  so  speak,  in  what  Holy  Scripture  teaches  us  concerning 
the  union  of  all  the  families  of  man  as  derived  from  one 
stock,  and  much  more,  as  joined  together  in  one  communion 
and  fellowship  in  the  mystical  Body  of  Christ.  We  are  not 
isolated  atoms.  We  belong  to  one  another.  We  attract 
and  are  attracted.  Whatever  we  say  or  do  has  some  in- 
fluence on  others.  "None  of  us  liveth  to  himself,  and  no 
man  dieth  to  himself,"  says  St.  Paul  (Bom.  xiv.  7) ;  we  are 
all  fellow  members  in  Christ  (Bom.  xii.  5.  1  Cor.  xii. 
12,  27.  Ephes.  iv.  25;  v.  30).  And  as  the  Psalmist  de- 
scribes the  heavens  as  having  a  missionary  office,  declaring 
the  glory  of  God,  so  it  may  be  said  of  the  system  of  the 
World  as  explained  by  the  philosophy  of  Newton,  demon- 
strating the  mutual  connexion  of  all  its  constituent  parts, 
and  the  functions  performed  by  every  several  part,  in  sus- 
taining and  animating  the  whole,  that  it  symbolizes,  as  it 
were,  that  work  of  spiritual  love  and  evangelical  zeal, 
which  energizes  in  the  body  of  Christ  for  the  edification  of 
that  body  and  of  the  whole  family  of  man,  by  Christian 
Missions  at  home  and  abroad. 

And  here  we  may  see  a  reply  to  the  Sadducean  scepticism 
and  secularism  of  the  present  age.  Some,  alas  !  there  are 
who  deny  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  regenerating  grace 
imparted  to  the  soul  of  an  infant  in  the  Sacrament  of  Holy 
a  Baptism.  Some  will  not  believe  in  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  Confirmation.  Some  doubt  the  existence  of  that 
cleansing  and  refreshing  grace,  which  is  a  pledge  and 


Gravitation  and  Grace — "  Lazvs  of  Nature!'  9 


earnest  of  Resurrection  and  Immortality,  and  which  is  given 
to  the  faithful,  penitent,  and  loving  communicant  in  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.  Some 
deny  the  infusion  of  grace  into  the  devout  soul,  in  prayer 
and  praise  and  holy  meditation,  and  in  hearing  and  reading 
of  God's  most  Holy  Word.  They  cannot  (they  say)  trace 
the  origin  and  sequence  or  mode  of  working  of  this  spiritual 
grace ;  and  therefore  they  will  not  believe  that  it  exists. 

But  let  us  ask  such  reasoners  as  these,  Can  they  discern 
the  origin  of  gravitation  ?  Can  they  trace  the  mode  of  its 
working  ?  They  cannot  do  so.  Isaac  Newton  himself,  at 
the  end  of  his  Principia,2  distinctly  affirms  that  he  "  knows 
nothing  of  the  reason  of  the  properties  of  gravity ; "  and  yet 
he  no  less  emphatically  affirms  that  it  exists  everywhere 
in  our  planetary  system  and  regulates  the  whole.  It  is 
enough  for  us  (he  adds)  to  know  this.  We  say  the  same  of 
Grace,  which  is  the  gravitation  of  the  soul. 

Let  us  pass  to  another  point. 

Many  fallacies  have  been  produced  in  the  popular  mind 
by  the  common  use  of  the  terms,  "  Laws  of  Nature/'  "  Law's 
of  Matter,"  and  the  like. 

On  account  of  the  loose  and  inaccurate  use  of  the  word 
"  Law,"  many  are  apt  to  forget  the  personal  existence  and 
continued  action  of  the  Divine  Lawgiver.  Bishop  Butler 
says 3  "  the  universal  prevalence  of  Cartes'  absurd  notions, 
teaching  that  Matter  is  necessarily  infinite,  and  neces- 
sarily eternal,  and  ascribing  all  things  to  mere  mechanic 
laws  of  matter,  exclusive  of  a  final  cause,  and  of  all  will  and 
intelligence  and  Divine  Providence  from  the  government  of 
the  world,  hath  incredibly  blinded  the  eyes  of  common 
reason,  and  prevented  men  from  discerning  Him,  '  in  Whom 
they  live,  and  move,  and  have  their  being'  "  (Acts  xvii.  28). 
Men  suffer  Divine  dynamics  to  be  absorbed  up  into  mate  rial 
mechanics.    Our  Blessed  Lord  says,  "  My  Father  worJeeth 

2  Ration&m.  harum  gravitatis  proprietatum  ex  phaenomenis  nondum 
potui  deducere,  ct  hypotheses  non  fingo.  Satis  est  quod  gravitas  revera 
existat,  et  agat,  et  ad  corporum  celestitim  et  maris  nostri  motus  omnes 
sufficiat. — Newton,  Principia,  p.  530,  Loud.,  1726,  ed.  tert. 

3  Bishop  Butler,  "  Letter  to  Dr.  Clarke,"  Works,  ii.  500. 


IO 


Miscellanies. 


hitherto,  and  I  work"  John  v.  17).  Almighty  God  has 
created  nothing  new  since  the  first  sabbath  of  creation,  but 
He  has  never  ceased  to  act,  in  the  preservation  and  direction 
of  every  part  of  the  system  of  the  universe  which  He  then 
created. 

The  word  "  Law  "  applied  to  the  natural  world  ought  to 
be  considered  as  having  a  relation  to  our  finite  human  under- 
standings, rather  than  to  the  Divine  power  and  will  of 
the  Creator.  And  our  great  Christian  Philosopher,  Isaac 
Newton,  has  taken  care  to  remind  us  of  this.  He  has  in- 
deed unfolded  to  us  the  law  of  gravitation,  (or,  in  other 
words,  the  general  method  of  the  Divine  action)  in  our  own 
planetary  system.  But  he  has  also  shown  us  that  this  law 
does  not  bind  the  Creator,  but  only  governs  those  creatures 
upon  which  the  law  is  imposed  by  Him.  He  has  declared 
to  us  the  fact  that  thefijeed  stars  are  not  subject  to  the  same 
law  of  gravitation  :  and  thus  he  has  declared  to  us  the  per- 
fect freedom  and  independent  omnipotence  of  the  Divine 
Creator.  What  can  have  produced  the  result,  that  while 
the  planets  all  gravitate  to  each  other  and  to  the  sun,  the 
fixed  stars  are  retained  in  their  places  for  thousands  of  years 
without  any  change  in  their  relations  to  each  other  ?  The 
answer  is,  It  is  the  will  of  God. 

And  here,  with  reverence  be  it  said,  in  what  we  know  of 
the  spiritual  world  from  Holy  Scripture,  we  have  a  counter- 
part to  this  difference  between  the  planets  and  the  fixed 
stars.  We  men,  in  this  moral  and  spiritual  system  of  ours 
(which  is  our  transitory  period  of  probationary  existence 
and  preparation  for  Eternity),  have  an  appointed  work  to 
do,  a  course  to  run,  an  orbit  of  duty  in  which  to  revolve 
around  the  Solar  Orb  of  Christ's  glorious  light.  This  has 
been  the  case  with  Man  ever  since  the  creation.  Christ  has 
ever  been  the  centre  of  our  spiritual  system ;  Adam,  Abel, 
Abraham,  all  the  Patriarchs  and  Prophets,  as  well  as  the 
Apostles  and  Evangelists,  looked  with  faith  to  Christ.  All 
revolved  around  Him  ;  all  gravitated  to  Him  as  their  centre. 
They  had  a  planetary  life,  as  we  have.  But  there  are  other 
blessed  spirits,  whose  work  is  done ;  spirits  who  cannot  sin ; 
spirits  who  can  never  fall.    These  are  the  "  elect  angels  " 


Planets  and  Fixed  Stars. 


(1  Tim.  v.  21).  These  are  the  fixed  stars  in  the  spiritual 
firmament,  shining  brightly  in  their  several  places  for 
eternity.  We  too,  who  are  now  like  planets  moving 
in  our  paths  of  duty,  if  we  continue  faithful  in  our 
orbits,  revolving  around  Christ,  may  one  day  be  trans- 
figured into  fixed  stars,  and  shine  brightly  for  evermore. 
As  the  prophet  Daniel  says,  "  They  that  are  wise  shall 
shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament ;  and  they  that 
turn  many  to  righteousness,  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever" 
(Daniel  xii.  3). 

My  friends,  in  this  parish  of  Colsterworth  Newton  was 
born  on  Christmas  Day ;  in  that  baptismal  font  Newton  was 
christened  on  New  Yeai*'s  Day,  the  festival  of  Christ's  Cir- 
cumcision, 1 643 ;  in  this  church  Newton  prayed  to  God,  and 
praised  Him,  and  listened  to  His  Holy  Word.  At  Wools- 
thorpe  in  this  parish  he  formed  the  first  conception  (may 
we  not  call  it  a  vision  from  above  ?)  of  that  great  law  of 
gravitation  by  which  he  afterwards  solved  the  problem  of 
the  system  in  which  we  live.  From  this  parish  he  went  in 
the  year  1660  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  where  by 
God's  providence  he  was  placed  under  the  tuition  of  one  of 
the  greatest  mathematicians  and  theologians  of  the  age,  Isaac 
Barrow,  whom  in  1669  he  succeeded  in  his  mathematical 
professorship.  Barrow  became  Master  of  his  College  in 
1672.  But  to  return  to  Newton.  He,  who  was  endued  by 
God  with  perhaps  the  greatest  philosophical  genius  vouchsafed 
to  man,  retained  the  meekness  and  humility  of  a  child ;  and 
looking  back  on  a  long  life  extended  to  eighty-five  years 
(and  which  was  ended  in  1727,  just  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago),  and  speaking  of  his  own  marvellous  scientific 
researches  and  discoveries,  he  said,  with  more  marvellous 
humility,  "  After  all,  I  have  only  been  like  a  little  child 
picking  up  a  few  pebbles  on  the  sea-shore  of  the  great  ocean 
of  truth." 

In  our  own  days,  when  some  who  are  called  philosophers 
would  separate  physical  science  from  revealed  religion,  and 
would  represent  philosophy  as  hostile  to  Christianity,  and 
seem  to  have  unbounded  confidence  in  themselves,  let  us 
comfort  our  hearts  and  strengthen  our  faith  by  the  example 


Miscellanies. 


and  testimony  of  Newton.  Of  all  philosophers  that  ever 
li»ved,  he  was  the  least  likely  to  be  deceived.  For,  unlike 
many  of  his  predecessors  he  never  built  anything  on 
hypothesis  (as  some  philophers  now  do),  "  hypotheses 
non  fingo"  was  his  maxim;  but  he  reasoned  from 
hwivn  phenomena.  And  he  pursued  his  researches  with 
that  cautious  self-distrust,  modesty,  and  patience,  which 
when  joined  with  intellectual  power,  are  the  best  guaran- 
tees of  success,  which  is  a  gift  of  God,  Who  hides 
himself  from  the  proud  and  gives  grace  and  wisdom  to 
the  humble. 

You  will  remember  with  what  reverent  and  devout  words 
Newton  closes  his  Principia.  Having  recapitulated  the  prin- 
ciples of  his  own  physical  system,  he  says,  "  All  these  things 
are  ruled  by  God,  not  as  the  soul  of  the  world  "  (which  is 
the  theory  of  the  Pantheist),  "but  as  the  Lord  of  all.  He 
it  is  Who  is  called  the  Lord  God  Almighty;  God  of  gods 
and  Lord  of  lords.  He  is  the  living  God,  Infinite,  Almighty, 
Omniscient,  Omnipresent,  and  Eternal ;  Whom  we  know 
by  His  attributes,  and  by  His  all-wise  and  beneficent  works, 
and  by  means  of  final  causes :  Whom  we  admire  for  His 
perfections,  and  Whom,  as  Lord  of  all,  we  worship  and 
adore !  " 

This  Church,  now  happily  restored,  is  an  appropriate 
monument  of  the  greatest  of  Christian  Philosophers.  Let  us 
show  our  thankfulness  to  God,  Who  gave  a  Newton  to  us, 
to  England,  and  to  the  World,  by  liberal  contributions  this 
day.  And  let  us  look  beyond  it,  and  above  it,  to  the  Church 
glorified  in  heaven,  where  all  true  worshippers  will  enjoy 
eternal  blessedness  and  glory.  The  hour  is  coming  when 
all  these  material  fabrics  will  be  no  more ;  the  hour  is 
coming  when  the  great  material  temple  of  the  Universe,  in 
which  Newton  was  a  devout  worshipper  and  venerable 
hierarch,  will  be  dissolved;  the  hour  is  coming  when  (as 
St.  Peter  speaks)  "  the  heavens  themselves  will  pass  away 
with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements  will  melt  with  fervent 
heat,  and  the  earth  and  all  things  therein  will  be  burned 
up"  (2  Peter  iii.  10)  ;  and  then,  if  we  have  been  faithful 
to  Christ,  by  Whom  all  things  were  made,  by  Whom  al 


Coticlnsioii. 


13 


Men  have  been  redeemed,  and  by  Whose  spirit  we  are 
sanctified,  we  shall  be  admitted  to  dwell  together  with  good 
and  holy  men,  with  blessed  saints  and  angels  in  happiness 
and  glory,  and  to  worship  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, 
Three  Persons  and  One  God,  blessed  for  evermore. 


RELIGIOUS  USES  OF  CLASSICAL  STUDIES. 


On  this  subject  I  had  occasion  to  offer  some  remarks  in 
publishing  an  Edition  of  Theocritus.  The  following  is  the 
Preface  to  the  second  edition  printed  in  the  year  1877  : — 

Ad  hanc  alteram  editionem  adornaudam  nova  queedam  mihi 
suppetebant  subsidia,  quee  in  priore  instruenda  prsesto  non 
erant.    Etenim  his  recentioribus  annis  ad  Theocriti  scripta 
illustranda   accesserunt  viri  ingenio  et  doctrina,  insignes, 
prsesertim  in  Gerrnania,  ex  quorum  laboribus  fructus  uberes 
percipere  licuit,  eorum  vestigiis  insistenti.    Vidi  etiam  non 
sine  jucundo  quodam  animi  affectu  adnotationes  nostras  a 
nuperrimo  et  eruditissimo  Theocriti  Editore  non  indignas 
existimari  quae  non  tantum  commemorarentur,  verum  etiam, 
delectu   earum   habito,  in  suam  editionem   reciperentur . 
Profuit  quoque    mihi   meos  labores  recognoscenti  eorum 
judicia  de  meis   qualibuscunque    in  Theocrito  recensendo 
tentaminibus   resciscere,  ita  ut    si  quibus  calculum  suum 
adjecissent,  de  iis  spem  concipere  auderem  meliorem,  et  si 
quos  ii  obelo  non   injuria  notavissent,   eos  retractandos 
censerem.    Unde  contigit  ut  secundamhanc  Theocriti  nostri 
editionem,  etsi  non  qualem  vellem,  at  saltern  qualem  minus 
nollem,  tuo  favori,  lector  benev  ole,  commendare  in  animum 
induxerim.    Cui  quidem  proposito  exsequendo,  cum  gravio- 
ribus  negotiis  continuo  implicarer,  multa  se  opposuerunt. 
Sed  tandem  voti  solvendi  occasionem  nactus  manum  ad  opus 
admovi. 

Theocritum  lectitasse  existimari  potest,  ex  venustissimis 
ipsius  carminibus,  vir  sanctissimus  et  disertissimus  Gregorius 
Nazianzenus,  Antistes  Constantinopolitanus.  Magnus  ille 
Basilius  Ca3sarea3  in  Cappadocia  Archiepiscopus,  qui  cum 
Nazianzeno  familiarissimc  vixit,  de  Gcntilium  libris  legendis 


Religions  uses  of  Classical  Studies. 


15 


luculentani  dissertationem  edidit.1  Basilii  a?qualis,  illustris 
illc  Pra?sul  Mediolanensis,  Sanctus  Anibrosius,  in  praeclaris 
Hexameron  libris,  hortulos  suos  ex  Virgilii  Eclogis  et 
Georgicis  irrigasse  videtur.  Gregorii  Nazianzeni  auditor 
Sanctus  Hieronynius,  satis  rigidus  alioquin  niorutn  censor, 
inultus  erat  in  scriptis  Gra?coruin  et  Latinorum  evolvendis, 
et  de  bis  literis  excolendis  doctam  epistolani  evulgavit.2 
Sanctus  AugustinuSj  Hipponensis  Episcopus,  in  egregiis  de 
doctrina  Cbristiana  libris/  de  eadem  re  sapienter  et  eleganter 
disseruit. 

Equidem  persuasissimum  babeo  Cbristianae  Ecclesia? 
optime  consulturn  iri,  si  base  studia,  qua?  in  antiquarum 
Hnguarum  exacta  cognitione,  tanquam  in  optimo  bumani 
intellectus  exercendi  et  informandi  gyrnnasio  et  quasi 
palaestra,  et  quae  in  Gra?corum  et  Ronianoruni  scriptis 
assidue  evolvendis  et  accurate  iuterpretandis  versantur,  non 
obsolescere  patiatur,  sed  potius  ea  materno  amore  fovere  et 
inrpensa  diligentia  promovere  conetur.  Nobis  certe  non 
invideri  debet,  si  ea  libertate  utamur,  qua?  summis  Ecclesia? 
priniitiva?  rectoribus  est  concessa,  et  studiis  bisce  jucun- 
dissimis,  qua?  adolescentiam  nostram  aluerunt,  senectutem 
aliquantisper  oblectemus. 

Quid  autem  si  non  diffiteamur  in  Tbeocrito  nostro  non 
pauca  deprebendi,  qua?  non  tantum  minus  proba  et  decora 
sint,  sed  etiam  fceda  et  turpia,  et  qua?  justurn  verecundia? 
sensum  graviter  offendant  ?  Verum  enimvero  regerere 
liceat,  quemadmodum  in  rebus  physicis  etiam  e  venenis 
noxiis  pbarmaca  solent  elici  salutaria,  ita  quoque  ex  bis  locis 
vitiosis  enucleari  possunt  moralia  quasdain  medicamenta,  ad 
salutem  promovendam  idonea,  et  nostris  pra?cipue  temporibus 
non  infructuosa. 

Etenim  cum  ad  talia  animum  advertamus,  qua?  scriptorum 
etbnicorum  etiam  celeberrimorum  scripta  deturpant,  et 
lucidissimo  eorum  candori  maculas  quasi  adspergunt,  et 
pra?cipue  poetarum  ingenio  et  styli  venustate  et  colorum 

1  S.  Basil.  Homil.  xxii.  p.  173,  torn,  ii.,  eJ.  Paris,  1722. 

2  S.  Hieronymus,  ad  Magnum  Oratorem,  Epist.  83,  p.  65-4,  torn,  iv.,  ed. 
Paris,  1706. 

3  S.  Augustinus,  de  Doctrina  Christiana,  lib.  ii.  ad  finem. 


i6 


Miscellanies. 


quasi  festival  hilaritate  et  versuum  numerosissiina  suavitate 
commendatissiniorum,  haud  facilem  aurem  iis  prasbebinius, 
qui  Lodio  nobis  pollicentur  et  persuadere  conantur,  nos  a 
vitiorum  foeditate  iuimunes  fore,  et  virtutibus  moralibus 
inclarescere  posse,  si  modo  nos  et  populares  nostros  seculari- 
bus  studiis  et  artibus  elegantioribus,  et  pliilosophia?  placitis, 
et  literarum  hunianiorum  cultural  totos  niancipemus.  Qui 
quidem  error  exitiosissimus  ex  his  ipsis  ethnicorum  libi'is 
efficacissime  potest  refelli. 

Ha3C  studia,  nullo  non  lionore  prosequenda,  et  nulla  non 
diligentia  excolenda,  ubicunque  cum  vera  religione  consoci- 
eutur,  et  quasi  famulentur  pietati,  et  caelestis  gratia?  splendore 
illmninentur  et  rore  pluviaque  irrigentur,  contra  autem,  si  per 
se  segregentur,  et  in  quandam  terrenam  et  quasi  silvestrcui 
solitudinem  ex  Civitate  Dei  abigantur,  effrenate,  petulanter 
et  intemperanter  gestire  solent,  et  animalium  sensuum  et 
appetituum  naturalium  indulgentia  luxuriare  et  lascivire,  et 
quasi  belluino  more  efferari.  Huic  sententia?  adstipulari 
videtur  universa  niundi  antiquitas.  Unde  recte  colligitur, 
rationem  bominis  et  voluntatem,  utcuuque  naturalibus  dotibus 
instructam  atque  adornatam,  ad  societatem  humanam  clari- 
ficandam,  purificandam  atque  illurninandam,  et  ad  rem  pub- 
licam  instaurandam  et  conservandam,  non  esse  idoneas. 

Liceat  etiam  aliud  adjicere  quod  a  re,  de  qua  agitur,  non 
alienum  esse  videtur. 

Cum  Tbeocriti  et  similium  scriptorum  pietatem  in  Deos 
suos  qualescunque  oculis  contemplamur,4  et  eorum  sensum 
pulcbritudinis  naturalis  exquisitum  elucentis  in  rivis  limpidis, 
prata  floribus  picta  recreantibus,  et  in  vallibus  herbosis, 
ministrantibus  ubertim  pascua  gregibus  niveis  et  armentis 
bourn  validis,  et  in  speluncis  vivisque  lacubus,  et  pastorum 
mentes  largo  quasi  ketitias  flumine  perfundentibus,  et  cum 
aure  percipimus  vocem  naturalis  pietatis,  in  versibus  eorum 
suavissimis  ad  Faunos  Nympkasque,  fontium,  rivorum  et 
moutium  amatores,  sese  exprimentis  et  effundentis,  cuiuam 
non  illico  succurritnoninjucundacogitatio, — Ecquidatalibus 
scriptoribus  expectandum  fuisset,  si  barum  omnium  rerum 

4  Cujus  exemplum  iusigne  babes  in  Idyllio  illo  pulcbevriino  vii.  34,  155. 
Conferas,  qureso,  x.  42. 


Pious  heathens  and  modem  sceptics. 


17 


Conditorem  Optimum  Maximum,  et  tantorum  bonorum 
Largitorem  munificentissimum,  Deum,  ex  oraculis  Ipsius 
diviuitiis  inspiratis  cognovisse,  et  hac  luce  veritatis  frui,  quaj 
nobis  illuxit,  licuisset  ?  Dicam  etiam  audacter  quod  sentio. 
Ecquis  non  potius  admiratur  diligitque  vitam  Theocriteorum 
pastoruin,  in  rupe  maris  Siculi,  vel  in  gramine  ad  ripas 
Anapi  sedentium,  vel  ad  fontem  sub  pinus  susurrantis 
umbraculo,  vel  sub  frondosarum  ulmorum  et  populorum 
albarum  hospitio,  post  anni  fruges  conditas.  Thalysia  laate 
celebrantiuin,5  et  carmina  numinibus  suis,  fistula  adspirante, 
canentium,  quam  illorum  philosophormn,  qui,  post  splendo- 
rem  divini  aspectus  in  Verbo  Veritatis  revelatum,  in  obscuni 
caligine  errare  contenti  sunt,  et  in  formidoloso  et  inhospitali 
baratliro  volutare  rerum  naturalium  et  causarum  secundarum, 
a  divino  intellectu,  amore,  et  potentia  Conditoris,  Qui,  ut 
cum  Newtono 6  nostro  loquar,  "  omnia  regit,  non  ut 
anima  mundi,  sed  universorum  Dominus,"  longe  lateque 
remotarum  ? 

Sed  hasc  hactenus.  Ignoscant  mihi  velim  lectores  benevoli 
talia  aliis  insinuanti,  qua3  ipsi  sibi  fortasse  praecipere  aptius 
et  melius  potuissent.  Scribebam  Riseholmia3  prope  Lin- 
colniam,  in  Festo  Epiphanise,  Anno  Salutis  mdccclxxvii. 

The  following  paragraphs  are  from  the  Preface  to  my 
former  Edition  of  Theocritus  : — 

Septennium  jam  effluxit  ex  quo  de  recensendis  Theocriu 
Reliquiis  cogitare  coepi.  Cujus  quidem  consilii  complures  ex- 
titere  causa3;  primum,  ut  harum  Literarum  studia  pro  virili 
parte  juvare  couarerj  deinde,  ut,  cum  severioribus  studiis 
et  gravioribus  negotiis  implicarer,  Scriptorem  aliquem  styli 
venustate  et  hilaritate  et  candore  ingenii  commendabilem, 
qualem  esse  Theocritum  omnes  censuerunt,  prae  manibus 
haberem,  quo  animum  subiude  acquiescentem  exercerem 
simnl  et  recrearem. 

Persuadebam  quoque  mihi,  quod  a  gravissimis  auctoribus 
traditurn  acccpimus,  iudigestam  variarum  scientiarum  leviter 
degustatarum  notitiam  adeo  nihil  ad  mentes  Adolesccntium 

5  Theocr.  Idyll,  vii.  ad  fin. 

6  lsaaci  Nowtoni  Principia,  ad  finem  ;  p.  528,  ed.  Lond.  1726. 
VOL.  III.  C 


i8 


Miscellanies. 


recte  iuformandas  valere,  ut  contra  eas  faciat  vel  effaaminato 
languore  flaccessere,  vel  volubili  inconstantia.  fluitare,  ne 
dicam  temeraria,  arrogantia  superbire  ;  et  nihil  unquam  verd 
solidi  ct  diuturni  in  iis  praasertiin  studiis,  quaa  jure  primum 
obtinent  locum,  Sacrarum  inquam  Literarum  et  Theologiaa, 
effici  posse,  omnia  autem,  quaa  in  his  attentarentur,infirina,  in- 
certa  et  infructuosa  fore,  si  fundamenta,  a  majoribus  nostris 
in  accurata  Antiquarum  Literarum  cognitione  sapientissime 
jacta,  labi  aut  vacillare  pateremur. 

Quare  Angliaa  nostras,  quum  in  aliis  rebus,  qua;  ad  Religionem 
pertinent,  turn  in  hac  quoque  egregiam  felicitatem  magnopere 
praadicandam  esse  arbitror,  quod  in  Scholarum  et  Acade- 
miarum  suarum  disciplinis  instituendis,  Linguarum  Antiqua- 
rum studia,  universae  humanitatis,  praacipue  autem  Theologies) 
sciential,  substructionem  esse  voluerit ;  unde  Patriae  nostras 
post  literas  renatas  semper  licuit  gloriari,  se  Viros  aluisse  et 
hodie  alere,  non  in  profanis  tantum  Uteris  summa,  cum  laude 
versatos,  sed  eosdem  sacraa  eruditionis  fama  florentissimos. 
Quis,  ut  recentiores  taceam,  quis  non  affectu  quodam  laatitiaa 
se  commoveri  sentiat,  quiim  Usserios,  Waltonos,  Gatakeros 
animo  recolat,  quiim  Savilios,  Hammondos,  Pearsonos, 
Bentleios,  Davisios,  et,  si  de  adoptivis  loqui  liceat,  quum 
Casaubonos,  Grabios ;  quorum  insistere  vestigiis  videtur 
esse  gloriosissimum ;  et  ut  aliqui  semper  reperiantur,  qui 
eadem  arma  tractent,  quibus  illi  feliciter  usi  sunt,  et  validis 
sanaa  doctrinaa  propugnaculis  Eeligionem  puram  et  incor- 
rnptam  tueantur,  Ecclesiaa  et  Reipublicaa  sane  est  salu- 
berrimum. 

Itaque  tantum  abest,  ut  haac  saacularia  studia,  tanquam  res 
non  summi  momenti,  unquam  negligenda  esse  videantur ; 
ut,  quum  teterrima  pestis  Literas  et  universam  hominum 
societatem  sit  invasura,  si  quando  ii,  qui  se  Criticos  appellari 
volunt,  Theologica  studia  invidiose  elevaverint,  ita  non 
minus  exitiabilis  futura  sit  ilia  perversitas,  si  unquam 
homines  sibi  nihil  Philologia  opus  esse  jactitent,  quin  praa- 
clari  Theologi  fiant.  Mihi  quidem  si,  salva  verecundia,  quid 
sentiam  eloqui  liceat,  haac  ab  illis  studia,  in  adolescentium 
praacipue  Institutione,  non  modo  nunquam  segreganda  esse, 
veriim  etiam,  si  fieri  posset,  arctiore  adhuc  cum  iis  societate 


Union  of  Secular  and  Sacred  Studies.         1 9 


jungenda  videntur ;  et  illud  potius  semper  placuit,  quod  a 
non  minis  aequo  profanarum  disciplinarum  censore,  Ter- 
tulliano,  quaeri  videmus,  "  Quomodo  repudiamus  scecularia 
studia,  sine  quibus  divina  esse  non  possunt  ?  "  7 

Qua?  cum  ita  sint,  nulla  magis  alia  ratione  haec  studia 
adolescentium  animis  arbitrabar  me  posse  commendare, 
quam  si  probatum  aliquem  Scriptorem,  qui  eos  suavitate 
alliceret,  ad  Codicum  fidem  accurate  recenserem,  et  rationibus 
identidem  expositis,  qua3  apud  me  in  lectionibus  deligendis 
valuissent,  quam  emendatissimum  iis  repraasentarem. 

Ut  autem  Theocritum  potissimum  edendum  susciperem, 
praater  causas  jam  a  me  memoratas3  alia  me  impulit  ratio. 
Cernebam  enim  locupletissimam  messem  Variarum  Lec- 
tionum,  e  MSS.  Theocriti  enotatarum,  a  Viris  doctis  jam 
esse  collectam ;  sed  tamen^  si  ita  loqui  liceat,  in  horreo 
etiam  nunc  pene  intactam  jacere,  et  areas  criticse  tribulum 
et  ventilabrum  adhuc  expectare. 


HORACE. 

Let  me  now  be  allowed  to  illustrate  the  moral  and  reli- 
gious uses  of  Classical  Literature  by  reference  to  the  works 
of  a  Roman  Author,  Horace,  which  do  not  appear  to  be  duly 
appreciated  in  this  respect.  The  popular  view  of  the  cha- 
racter of  Horace  seems  to  be  this,  that  he  was  endued  with 
much  liveliness  of  fancy,  well  trained  by  the  study  of  Greek 
Literature,  gifted  with  extraordinary  felicity  and  graceful 
elegance  of  language,  with  happy  versatility  of  metrical 
skill,  with  refined  delicacy  of  taste,  and  courtesy  of  manner, 
that  he  exercised  his  poetical  gifts  in  light  and  amatory 
verses,  ministering  to  the  indulgence  of  sensual  appetites ; 
that  he  was  a  man  of  the  world,  a  libertine,  and  an 
epicure ;  but  was  wholly  deficient  in  earnestness  of  purpose, 
and  seriousness  of  character.  To  this  common  estimate  of 
him  I  would  venture  respectfully  to  demur.  I  would  not 
pretend  to  say  that  his  life  was  not  sullied  and  tainted  with 
7  Tertullian.  de  Idololatrift,  c.  10. 

c  2 


20 


Miscellanies. 


the  stain  of  certain  vices,  which,  in  his  age  and  country  (such 
was  the  moral  corruption  of  the  most  illustrious  heathen 
nations  in  their  palmiest  days),  were  not  regarded  as  vices 
at  all.8  But  it  has  been  well  observed  by  Bentley,  in  the 
preface  to  his  edition  of  Horace,  that  in  proportion  as 
Horace  advanced  in  years,  so  his  poems  improved  in  moral 
tone,  and  elevation  of  sentiment.  And  the  late  Alexander 
Knox,  in  an  excellent  paper  (printed  in  his  Remains,  vol.  i. 
pp.  7 — 17)  points  out  that  Horace  gives  utterance  to  a  pen- 
sive consciousness  of  the  hollowness  of  worldly  pleasures 
and  animal  enjoyments,  and  of  the  palling  satiety  and  weary 
listlessness  (veternum)  and  jaded  exhaustion  of  body  and 
mind  produced  by  them,  and  gives  vent  to  an  intense 
craving  for  something  beyond  them,  to  satisfy  the  longings 
of  his  soul;  and  that  he  describes,  in  language  of  bitter  dis- 
appointment, his  own  moral  condition ;  that  he  was  like  a 
man  searching  for  something  beyond  himself  which  he  could 
not  find,  and  that  he  was  groping  in  the  dark  for  some 
object  of  eager  desire  which  he  was  sure  existed,  but  which 
eluded  his  grasp.9  The  limits  of  this  paper  will  not  allow 
me  to  develope  this  opinion  as  fully  as  I  could  wish ;  let 
me  state  briefly  what  that  opinion  is. 

Horace  was  honoured  with  the  friendship  of  the  Emperor 
Augustus,  and  of  his  Prime  Minister  Maecenas,  and  of  his 
noble  friend  Agrippa. 

It  would  seem  as  if  Augustus  was  raised  up  by  Divine 
Providence,  and  was  continued  in  his  proud  pre-eminence  as 
Master  of  the  World  for  forty  years,  in  order  to  show  what  can 
— and  also  to  display  what  can  not — be  done  by  unlimited 
military  and  naval  power  and  prowess,  and  by  diplomatic 
prudence  and  able  State  policy,  and  salutary  Legislation,1 
assisted  by  human  skill,  intelligence,  and  genius  in  Litera- 
ture and  the  Arts, — for  the  restoration  and  preservation  of 
National  Institutions.1 

8  See  Hor.  1  Sat.  iv.  113,  and  below,  p.  26,  and  p.  28. 

9  See  2  Ode  xvi.  Otium  Divos,  &c ,  and  1  Epist.  i.  23—65  ;  1  Epist. 
viii.  7,  10  ;  2  Epistle  ii.  141,  &c. ;  175,  &c. ;  200,  &e. 

'  For  evidence  of  this,  see  the  Life  of  Augustus  by  Suetonius,  and  the 
history  of  Dio  Cassius  ;  the  reader  will  find  them  quoted  in  Dean  Merivale's 
Rome,  vol.  iv.  p.  33 — 15,  ed.  1S56. 


Political  and  Poetical  Mission  of  Horace.      2 1 

It  has  not,  I  think,  been  duly  considered,  that  Horace 
(and  the  same  may  be  said  also  of  Virgil)  endeavoured, 
especially  in  the  third  and  fourth  Books  of  his  Odes,  and  in 
the  two  Books  of  his  Epistles  (probably  at  the  suggestion  of 
Augustus  himself)  to  perform  the  work  of  recommending,  by 
all  the  powers  of  his  poetical  genius,  the  Imperial  state 
policy  and  the  Augustan  Legislation,  to  the  favourable 
acceptance  of  the  Roman  People.  Many  of  the  Odes  and 
Epistles  of  Horace  may  be  regarded  as  serving  the  purpose 
(may  I  use  the  expression  ?)  of  political  pamphlets ;  or  as 
leading  articles  in  Newspapers  or  Reviews,  and  as  having 
therefore  an  earnest  and  serious  design.  They  were  intended, 
I  believe,  to  panegyrize  the  principles,  and  to  popularize  the 
enactments,  by  which  Augustus  endeavoured  to  save  the 
Roman  State  from  the  dark  abyss  of  moral  corruption,  which 
yawned  beneath  his  feet,  and  to  endue  the  Nation  with  fresh 
vitality  and  vigour. 

In  order  to  co-operate  with  his  imperial  Master  in  this 
glorious  enterprise  (rendered  more  difficult  by  the  prevalence 
of  Epicureanism  and  Stoicism),  Horace  enunciated  the  grand 
fundamental  principle  of  all  Law  and  Order,  namely,  that 
all  Civil  Authority  is  from  above,  and  is  based  on  a  religious 
recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  God.  How  noble  is  his 
utterance  (addressed  to  Rome),  almost  like  an  anticipation 
of  St.  Paul's  thirteenth  chapter  to  the  Romans  : — 

"  Dis  te  minorem  quod  geris  imperas  : 
Hinc  omne  principium,  hue  refer  exitum  ; 
Di  multa  neglecti  dederunt 
Hesperias  mala  luctuosee. 
Jam  bis  Moneses  et  Pacori  manus,  &c."  (3  Od.  vi.  5.) 

Reverence  for  the  Deity  was  to  be  shown  by  religious 
devotion  and  by  Public  Worship,  and  therefore  Horace  would 
assist,  with  his  poetical  genius,  the  efforts  of  Augustus  to 
rebuild  the  sacred  fabrics  of  the  Temples  at  Rome. 

"  Delicta  majorum  immeritus  lues, 
Komane,  donee  templa  refeceris, 
^Edesque  labentes  Deorum,  et 

Focda  nigro  simulacra  fumo."         (3  Od.  vi.  1 .) 


22 


Miscellanies. 


Compare  2  Od.  xv.  17,  where  he  speaks  of  Laws, 

"  Oppida  publico 
Sumptu  jubentes  et  Deorum 
Templa  novo  decorare  saxo." 

And  his  question  to  the  Roman  Capitalist, 

"  Cur  eget  indignus  quisquam,  te  divite  ?  Quare 
Templa  ruunt  antiqua  Deum  ?  "  (2  Sat.  ii.  104.J 

Selfishness  and  Avarice,  seen  in  miserly  hoarding  of  money, 
and  in  griping,  greedy,  and  usurious  money-lending ;  and 
Vainglory  shown  in  profuse  expense  in  building,  in  gardens, 
in  baths,  in  the  luxury  of  the  table;  these  vices  were  sapping 
the  vitals  of  Roman  Society,  and  were  preparing  it  for 
dissolution.  Augustus,  by  his  legislation,  endeavoured  to 
counteract  them.  And  the  Sabine  bard  seconded  him  in 
his  attempt.  How  nobly  does  Horace  commend  to  his  Roman 
readers  the  virtue  of  patriotism  by  such  lines  as — 

"  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori  :"  (3  Od.  ii.  13.) 

and  by  promising  them  immortality  for  noble  deeds, 

"  Virtus  recludens  immeritis  mori 
Caelum,  &c."  (3  Od.  ii.  21.) 

and  by  the  sublime  example  of  Regulus  ;  (3  Od.  v.  13,  &c). 
How  grand  is  his  appeal  to  the  stern  and  hardy  virtues  of 
self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  their  ancestors,  women  as 
well  as  men, 

"  Privatus  illis  census  erat  brevis, 
Commune  magnum."  (2  Od.  xv.  13.) 

Compare  that  other  magnificent  appeal  to  the  heroic  past, 

"  Non  his  juventus  orta  parentibus 
Infecit  eequor  sanguine  Punico, 
Pyrrhumque  et  ingentem  cecidit 
Antiochum  Hannibalemque  dirum ; 
Sed  rusticorum  mascula  militum 
Proles,  Sabellis  docta  ligonibus 


Marriage  Laws. 


23 


Versare  glebas,  efc  severa? 
Matris  ad  arbitrium  recisos 
Portare  fustes,  sol  ubi  niontium 
Mutaret  umbras,  et  juga  demeret 
Bobus  fatigatis,  amicum 

Tempus  agens  abeunte  curru." 

(3  Od.  vi.  33—44.) 

How  powerfully  does  he  endeavour  to  raise  them  from  the 
grovelling  slavery  of  money-getting,  and  from  pampering 
the  animal  appetite,  by  setting  before  them  the  unprofitable- 
ness of  worldly  riches  hoarded  in  sordid  penury,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other,  of  profuse  prodigality  in  sumptuous 
surfeiting ;  and  by  describing  the  wealth  of  contentment, 
and  the  pleasures  of  simplicity  of  living,  and  the  joys  of  a 
country  life ; 

See  2  Od.  ii. ;  2  Od.  xiv. ;  2  Od.  xviii.  See  3  Od.  i.  and 
3  Od.  ii.;  3  Od.  xvi.  17—44.  j  3  Od.  xxiv.  49—51.  4  Od. 
ix.  45 — 52.    Epod.  ii.  and  xvi. 

Horace  traces  the  moral  corruption  of  Roman  Society  to 
the  desecration  of  Marriage,  and  to  the  prevalence  of 
Adultery; 

"  Fecunda  culpa3  secula  nuptias 
Primum  inquinavere,  et  genus  et  domos  ; 
Hoc  fonte  derivata  clades 

In  patriam  populumque  fluxit."  (3  Od.  vi.  1 7.) 

He  therefore  would  do  all  in  his  power  to  recommend  to 
general  acceptance  the  laws  of  Augustus  (called  the  "  Julian 
Laws/'  4  Od.  xv.  22),  for  the  encouragement  and  restoration 
of  Marriage,  and  for  the  punishment  of  the  sin  of  conjugal 
infidelity.  He  eulogizes  those  Laws  as  the  wisest  enact- 
ments of  imperial  legislation.  Referring  to  them  he  says  to 
Augustus 

"  Cum  tot  sustineas  et  tantanegotia  solus, 
Res  Italas  armis  tuteris,  moribus  ornes, 
Legibus  emendes,  etc."  (2  Epist.  i.  1.) 

And  he  rejoices  in  the  thought  of  their  beneficial  effects ; 


2  4  Miscellan  ies. 

"  Nullis  polluitur  casta  domus  stupris, 
Mos  et  Lex  rnaculosum  edomuit  nefas ; 
Laudantui-  simili  prole  puerpera?, 

Culparn  poena  premit  comes."        (4  Od.  v.  21.) 

and 

"Tua,  Caesar,  aetas 
Janum  Quirini  clausit,  et  ordinem 
Rectum  evaganti  frena  licentiae 
Injecit,  emovitque  culpas, 

Et  veteres  revocavit  artes."        (4  Od.  xv.  4.) 

Compare  the  Carmen  Seculare  v.  19,  45,  56,  and  the  noble 

lines, 

"  0  quis,  quis  volet  impias 

Caades  et  rabiem  tollere  civicatn  ? 
Si  quaeret  Patee  uebium 

Subscribi  statuis,  indomitam  audeat 
Refrenare  licentiam, 

Clarus  postgenitis."  (3  Od.  xxiv.  25.) 

Augustus  had  many  difficulties  to  contend  "with,  in  apply- 
ing these  Laws  ;  and  Horace,  I  conceive,  is  referring  to  his 
perseverance  in  this  respect,  in  the  magnificent  Ode  ■which 
describes 

"  Justum  et  tenacem  propositi  virum." 

(3  Od.  iii.  1,  see  v.  11.) 

That  Horace  had  a  lofty  conception  of  the  dignity  of  his  own 
office  as  a  Poet,  and  as  a  Teacher  and  Prophet  to  his  own 
country  and  age,  is  clear  from  his  interesting  and  instructive 
description  of  the  duties  of  a  Poet,  in  one  of  his  Epistles  to 
Augustus, 

"  Vatis  avarus 
Non  temere  est  animus,  &c."   (2  Epist.  i.  119 — 138.) 

The  passage  is  too  long  to  quote,  but  it  deserves  to  be  care- 
fully studied  as  a  portrait  of  Horace,  drawn  by  himself,  in 
one  of  his  soberest  and  most  serious  moods. 

Let  me  add  two  other  traits  :  first,  his  veneration  and 


What  if  Horace  had  known  Christianity  ?  25 

love  for  his  father,  who  in  a  low  rank  of  society,  and  a  poor 
estate,  had  a  wise  mind,  and  large  heart,  and  generously 
exercised  self-denial  for  the  sake  of  educating  his  child,  the 
future  Lyric  bard,  at  a  good  school  under  the  best  masters 
at  Rome,  and  watched  over  him  there  with  parental  vigilance 
and  tenderness,  and  guarded  and  guided  him  with  prudent 
counsels  when  there.  Let  the  reader  be  requested  to  look 
at  the  following  passages:  1  Sat.  iv.  105 — 125;  vi.  64 — 99; 
and  2  Epist.  ii.  41 — 54.  How  noble  is  this  filial  affection 
and  reverence  in  a  heathen.  Horace,  the  most  popular  Poet 
of  Rome,  the  friend  and  favourite  of  Maecenas  and  of  Augustus, 
the  admired  of  all  admirers  among  courtly  clients,  is  not 
ashamed  of  the  humble  station  and  poverty  of  his  father; 
no,  he  tells  them  that  he  preferred  such  a  parent  to  the 
noblest  founders  of  the  patrician  houses  of  Rome. 

The  second  noticeable  point  is,  that  Horace  did  not  rely 
on  himself  for  poetical  inspiration.  He  looked  upward; 
and,  in  a  wise  spirit  of  lowly  modesty,  he  ascribed  all  his 
gifts  and  his  fame  to  a  divine  power.  (See  4  Od.  iii.  17 — 
24 ;  cp.  3  Od.  iv.  21,  36.)  What  would  Horace  have  been,  if 
he  had  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  Christian  teaching,  and  of 
spiritual  grace,  in  Holy  Scripture,  and  in  Prayer,  and  in  the 
Sacraments  ? 

What  are  the  practical  inferences  from  these  facts  ? 
The  Augustan  legislation, — backed  though  it  was  by  every 
aid  that  human  power,  skill,  perseverance,  and  genius  could 
supply, — failed  in  its  endeavours  to  preserve  Roman  Society 
from  moral  corruption,  and  to  save  the  Roman  State  from 
decay  and  ultimate  dissolution.  Augustus  had  to  mourn 
over  its  failure,  even  in  his  own  family. 

But  soon  afterwards  Christianity  appeared ;  it  came  forth 
in  lowly  meekness ;  but  it  did  for  Society  what  the  Imperial 
Master  of  the  World  had  attempted  in  vain. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  institution  of  Marriage,  the 
fountain  and  well-spring  of  all  domestic  peace  and  happiness. 
The  Eternal  Son  of  God,  by  His  Incarnation,  has  consecrated 
Womanhood,  and  has  sanctified  Marriage  to  be  a  figure  of 
his  own  mystical  union  with  the  Church.    And  the  Church, 


26 


Miscellanies. 


by  preaching  that  doctrine,  and  by  declaring  that  the  body 
of  the  Christian  becomes  by  Baptism  a  member  of  Christ, 
and  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  will  be  raised  from  the 
grave  hereafter,  and  be  made  like  the  glorified  body  of 
Christ 2  (if  it  has  been  dedicated  to  Him  and  used  in  His 
service),  has,  as  it  were,  leavened  the  mass  of  human  society, 
and  has  purified  and  changed  it  to  a  new  and  holy  existence, 
and  has  given  it  peace  and  joy  in  this  world,  and  hopes  full 
of  immortality  in  the  next. 

Human  Reason,  Power,  and  Genius  did  what  they  could, 
by  Augustus.  But  they  could  not  reach  beyond  certain 
limits.  They  endeavoured  to  restore  Marriage:  but  they  did 
not  even  attempt  to  restrain  Harlotry,  and  to  eradicate  that 
terrible  sin  which  St.  Paul  has  mentioned  in  his  dark  cata- 
logue of  the  vices  of  heathendom.3  Horace,  even  in  his  most 
earnest  efforts  on  behalf  of  Marriage,  in  the  third  and  fourth 
books  of  his  Odes,  has  delivered  no  protest  against  those  sins  ; 
but  the  contrary.  The  rigid  edicts  of  Augustan  legislation, 
and  the  poetical  genius  of  the  Augustan  age  did  absolutely 
nothing — attempted  nothing — for  the  emancipation  of  Man- 
kind from  the  debasing  slavery  of  those  sins.  Yet  still  God 
strove  with  them  and  in  them.  The  searchings  after  Him,  the 
cravings  for  light,  the  noble  assertions  which  have  been  already 
quoted  from  Horace  of  the  doctrine  of  a  Divine  Supremacy  in 
human  States,  and  of  the  need  of  subordination  in  Govern- 
ments to  the  Divine  Will,  and  of  the  maintenance  of  public 
worship  in  sacred  fabrics  dedicated  to  the  Divine  honour  ; 
the  declarations  of  the  honour  to  be  paid  to  Marriage,  as 
the  source  of  public  and  private  happiness,  and  the  denuncia- 
tions of  severe  penalties  to  conjugal  unfaithfulness,  and  the 
proclamation  of  the  dignity  of  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice, 
of  plain  living  and  of  high  thinking,  and  of  the  necessity  of 
divine  help,  inspiring  holy  thoughts  and  enabling  to  do 
noble  deeds — these  are  witnesses  of  great  truths,  and  render 
the  study  of  Horace  profitable  and  delightful  to  all. 

They  also  read  in  the  ears  of  Christian  England  a  solemn 

-  1  Cor.  iii.  16,  17 ;  vi.  19,  20.    2  Cor.  vi.  16.    Eph.  ii.  6;  v.  3,  4, 
22—32.    Phil.  iii.  21.    Col.  iii.  1—4.    1  John  iii.  2,  3. 
3  Rom.  i.  27.    1  Tim.  i  10. 


Appeal  to  England.  27 


warning,  that  if  she  imagines  that  Literature,  Science,  and 
the  Fine  Arts  (things  deserving  of  all  honour  in  their  proper 
place  and  degree)  ;  that  tact  and  courtesy  and  gentlemanly 
manners  will  save  her  from  moral  decay  and  social  and  national 
dissolution  ;  if  she  dallies  with  Positivism,  Pantheism,  or 
Materialism  ;  if  she  relies  on  secular  teaching  in  her 
Elementary  Schools  in  her  towns,  and  in  her  Colleges  and 
Universities  ;  if  she  thinks  that  she  can  educate  without  the 
Scriptures  and  Prayers  and  the  Creeds ;  if  she  discards 
from  her  School  System  the  dogmatic  truths  of  Christianity 
concerning  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  Baptismal 
Covenant,  the  doctrine  of  Communion  with  Christ  in  the 
Holy  Eucharist,  and  of  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body,  and 
the  consequent  sanctity  of  Marriage,  and  the  sinfulness  of 
Harlotry  and  Intemperance ;  if  she  forgets  the  Supremacy 
of  Almighty  God  in  the  affairs  of  a  Nation ;  and  if  she  ceases 
to  perceive  the  necessity  of  the  practical  acknowledgment 
of  that  Supremacy  in  her  national  Councils,  and  by  main- 
taining her  national  faith  and  worship  ;  if  she  gives  facilities 
to  Divorce,  and  connives  at  Adultery,  and  makes  it  to  be  an 
occasion  for  another  Marriage,  and  for  another  breach  of  it ; 
if  she  legalizes  Marriages  which  God  has  declared  to  be 
incestuous  :  if  she  desecrates  the  Lord's  Day,  and  secularizes 
and  profanes  the  Places  dedicated  to  Him, — her  churches  and 
her  churchyards, — she  will  sink  into  as  bad  a  state  as  that  of 
heathen  Rome  as  described  in  Holy  Scripture. 

It  is  with  reluctance  that  I  touch  on  the  following  topic 
at  all ;  but  in  times  when  many  persons  seem  to  forget  what 
we  owe  in  social  and  domestic  respects  to  Christianity,  and 
appear  to  think  that  Christianity  is  only  one  among 
many  successive  forms  of  belief,  and  that  we  may  part  with 
the  teaching  of  definite  Christian  dogmas  in  our  systems  of 
popular  Instruction,  and  may  substitute  something  else  in 
its  place,  it  ought  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  Christianity 
manifested  its  courage,  and  its  consciousness  of  its  Divine 
origin,  in  the  great  cities  of  Italy  and  Greece,  by  its  bold 
protest  against  Harlotry,  and  against  a  worse  sin. 

The  Augustan  Legislation  did  indeed  make  a  struggle, — a 
strenuous  but  unsuccessful  one — against  the  sin  of  Adultery. 


2  8 


Miscellanies. 


And  Horace  assisted  it  in  its  attempt;  but  they  did  not  try 
to  restrain  harlotry  (see  1  Sat.  i.  3) ;  even  in  the  third  and 
fourth  Books  of  his  Odes,  which  breathe  forth  a  noble 
spirit  of  indignation  against  the  sin  of  Adultery,  and  in 
favour  of  the  Augustan  legislation  for  checking  it,  are  inter- 
mingled some  poems  which  dally  with  the  sin  of  Harlotry, 
and  even  with  a  blacker  crime. 

One  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christi- 
anity is  to  be  found  in  the  bold  and  uncompi-omisiug  attitude 
which  it  at  once  assumed  against  both  those  vices. 

Augustus  and  Horace  smiled  upon  them  with  complacency; 
but  Christianity  denounced  them  with  indignation,  and  it 
did  more  than  this  ;  by  revealing  the  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation of  the  Son  of  God  consecrating  human  nature,  in 
body  and  soul,  by  uniting  it  in  His  own  Person  to  the 
Nature  of  God,  and  by  preaching  the  mistical  union  of 
Christ  and  His  Church,  and  the  sanctification  of  the  body 
and  soul  of  every  member  of  the  Church  by  means  of  that 
Union,  and  by  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  by 
proclaiming  the  future  Resurrection  of  the  Body,  to  be 
glorified  for  ever  hereafter  in  heaven,  if  kept  in  temperance, 
soberness,  and  chastity  here  on  earth ;  it  has  in  will  and 
design,  and  also  (wherever  it  is  believed  and  obeyed),  in 
practical  effect,  banished  Harlotry  and  all  Impurity  from  the 
world,  and  has  rescued  Mankind  from  their  deadly  conse- 
quences to  persons,  families,  and  society,  and  has  imparted 
such  peace  and  health  and  joy  to  households  and  to  nations, 
as  no  earthly  power  of  Princes,  Potentates,  and  Parliaments, 
and  as  no  earthly  genius  of  Poets,  Philosophers,  Patriots, 
and  Philanthropists  have  ever  been  able  to  confer. 

What  England  may  become  socially  and  domestically  (to 
say  nothing  of  another,  future,  eternal  life),  without  the 
teaching  of  definite  Christian  doctrine  in  her  schools,  maybe 
learnt  from  the  study  of  the  writings  of  Horace — and  after 
him,  of  Martial  and  Juvenal.  May  she  not  reproduce  the 
dark  picture,  drawn  by  St.  Paul  (Rom.  i.  22 — 32),  of  ancient 
Rome,  and  of  the  heathen  World  ? 


ETHIC  A  ET  SPIEITUALIA. 


The  following  Latin  Apophthegms,  collected  or  composed  by 
the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  were  designed  specially  for  the  use  of 
students  in  training  for  Holy  Orders.  An  English  transla- 
tion of  them  will  be  found  below,  page  53. 

ETHICA  et  SPIRITUALIA,   in  usum  alujinokum  seminauii 

THEOLOGICI  PAETIM  COLLEGIT,  PAETIM  CONSCEIPSIT  CHRISTOPHORUS 
WORDSWORTH,  EPISCOPUS  LINCOLN1ENS1S. 

Christophortts  divina  permissione  Episcopus  Lincolniensis  dilectis  in 
Christo  filiis,  Theologici  Seminarii  aluinuis,  salutem,  gratiam,  et  benedic- 
tionem. 

Damus  vobis  in  nianus,  adolescentes  ingenui,  libellum  mole  exiguum, 
sed,  ni  spes  nos  fallat,  vobis  non  injucundum  futurum  neque  infructuo- 
sura.  Etenim  in  hoc  tenui  volumine  tanquam  in  diversorio  hospitali  et 
spirituali  convivio  commorantes  habebitis  vobiscum  et  familiariter  collo- 
quentes  viros  ingenio  et  doctrina  illustres,  eosque  pietate  et  sanctitate 
venerabiles.  Conyenietis  Ignatium,  Irenseum,  Chrysostomum.  Audietis 
Ambrosium,  Hieronynium,  Augustinum.  Quorum  ex  consortio  non 
exclusimus  scriptores  quosdam  ethnicos,  praesertim  poetas,  qui  quasi 
prophetae  universaB  bumanitatis  non  injuria  possunt  appellari,  et  qui 
effatis  suis  luculenter  declarant,  Deum  Optimum,  Maximum  Se  nunquam 
ajxapTvpov  reliquisse.1 

Quajdam  de  nostro  interspersimus,  in  quibus  sententias  memorabiles 
versibus  beroicis  et  elegiacis,  item  senariis  iambis  et  cboliambis  con- 
cludere  conati  sumus,  quo  facilius  legentium  mentibus  imprimerentur,  ita 
ut  non  tarn  de  styli  elegantia  laboraremus,  vel  metricam  numerositatem 
affectaremus,  quam  verborum  brevitatem  consequeremur. 

Viris  illustribus  in  usu  fuisse  accepimus,  ut  qua?  sapienter,  scite,  acute, 
presse  et  nervose  dicta  audivissent,  ea  in  unum  quasi  spicilegium  con- 
necterent,  ita  ut  in  promptu  identidem  haberent,  siquando  vel  animus 
affectuum  perturbatione  agitaretur,  vel  de  consilio  capiendo,  in  re  ancipiti, 
haesitaret,  vel  prau  socordia  languesceret,  et  quasi  calcari  indigeret.  Nam, 
ut  ait  ille, 

^pv)(i]s  voaovarjs  eiaXv  iarp(>\  \uyiu, 

et, 

Sunt  verba  et  voces,  quibus  hunc  lenire  dolorem 
Possis,  et  rnagnam  morbi  deponere  partem  ;  3 

et,  ut  de  animi  obtorpescentis  stimulis  loquamur.  ad  excutiendum 
veteinum  salutaria  sunt  etiam  mordacia  conviciantis  dicteria, 


1  Act.  Apost.  xiv.  17. 


-  Horat.,  1  Epist.  i.  34. 


30 


Miscellanies. 


tois  (Twfppocriv  yap  dpTiKfvrpa  yiyverai.3 
Sed  instar  omnium  regis  Hebrceorum  sapientissimi  oraculum  divinitus 
inspiratum  audiamus :  "  Verba  sapieatum  sunt  stimuli,  et  quasi  elavi  in 
altum  defizi,  quae  per  Magistrorum  consilia  data  sunt  a  Pastobe  Uxo."4 
Nobis,  adolescentes  optimi,  unus  est  Pastob,  Dominus  Noster  Jesus 
Christus,  ex  Cujus  manibus  per  Magistros  Sapientia?, — Ecclesia?  Christiana? 
Doc  tores, — stimulos  accepimus,  nos  ad  fortiter  et  amanter  agendum  pro- 
vocates ;  et  a  Quo  clavos  quoque  babemus  in  altum  defixos,  ad  fidem 
nostram,  inter  omnes  mundi  procellas  inconcussam,  firmiter  roborandam  et 
Bolidandam.  Ille  est  "  Lux  Mundi  "  qua? 6  illuminat  omnem  hominem 
venientem  in  mundum ;"  et  quaecunque  sapienter  excogitata  et  pulchrc 
dicta  a  quolibet  mortalium  accepimus,  nostra  quidem  sentential,  sunt  quasi 
scintilla?  ex  ilia  Luce  ineffabili  coruscantes.  Neque  enim  Etbnicos 
proscribimus  tanquam  ex  ilia,  divina  societate  exules  penitus  atque  ex- 
torres.  Imo  vero  potius  Alexandrina?  Ecclesia?  Tbeologis  aures 
applicemus,  qui  affirmare  non  dubitaverunt  omnes  sapientia?  rivulos, 
ubicunque  scaturientes,  ex  sempiterno  rov  Aoyov  tov  di'Si'ou  fonte 
profluxisse. 

Valete,  dilecti  in  Domino.  Dabamus  feria  secunda  post  Pascba 
A.S.  MDCCCLXXVII. 


ETHICA  ET  SPIRITUALIA. 

0e(U. 

Loed,  be  Thy  Word  my  rule, 

Therein  may  I  rejoice ; 
Tby  Glory  be  my  aim, 

Thy  holy  Will  my  choice  ; 

Thy  promises  my  hope, 

Thy  Providence  my  guard, 
Thine  arm  my  strong  support, 
Thyself  my  sure  reward. 

Via  est  Dei  lex  ;  Meta  gloria  est  Dei. 

Deo  est  Natura,  quod  fecerit. 

Naturae  Conditor  nihil  in  miraculis  contra  naturam  fecit,  sed  tantum 
contra  illam  consuetudinem  qua?  nobis  innotuit. 

Miraculum  esset  omnibus  miraculis  incredibilius,  si  mundus  sine  mira- 
culis Christo  credidisset. 


Omni  miraculo,  quod  fit  per  hominem,  majus  miraculum  est  homo. 

Nisi  Deus  esset  immutabilis,  nulla  mutabilis  natura  permaneret. 

Tempus  a  creatura  ccepit,  utrumque  a  Deo.  Nihil  in  tempore  novum 
est  Deo,  Qui  condidit  tempora,  et  ab  a?ternitate  existens  omnia  suis  quajque 
temporibus  distribuit. 


3  .Eschyl.  Eumen.  130. 
s  Joh.  ix.  5. 


1  EccL  xii.  11. 
s  Joh.  i.  9. 


Ethica  et  Spiritualia.  3 1 

Nihil  in  hoc  mundo  fieri  potest,  nisi  vel  faciente  vel  permittente  Deo. 
Peccatum  non  est  natura,  sed  vitiurn  natura;. 


Cum  legitur  Scriptura,  Deum  tihi  cerne  loquentem  : 
Tu,  quoties  oras,  ipse  Deo  loqueris. 

Natura;  liber  est  unus  ;  Scriptura  secundus  ; 
Altera  posse  docens,  altera  velle  Dei. 

Novum  Testamentum  in  Vetere  latet ;  Vetus  Testamentum  in  Novo 
patet. 

Umbra  in  Lege ;  imago  in  Evangelio  ;  Veritas  in  Ccelo.   (S.  Ambros.) 

Ol  npocfrrjTai  Kara  Xpiarov  efycrav.     (S.  Ignat.) 

Hebrseorum  Patriarcharum  Vita  fuit  prophetia.    (S.  Aug.) 

Quod  Vetus  Testamentum  non  intelligatur  a  Judaeis,  non  minuit  ejus 
auctoritatem,  imo  auget ;  nam  in  ipso  Vetere  Testamento  Judseorum 
ca3citas  clare  prsedicitur. 


Sol  facit  ut  solem  videas  ;  Deus  facit  ut  videas  Deum. 


Qui  dedit  Legem,  dedit  Gratiam  ;  Legem  per  Servum  (Moysen)  misit ; 
Ipse  cum  gratia  in  mundum  a  ccelo  descendit. 

Lex  data  est  ut  Gratia  quasreretur;  Gratia  data  est  ut  Lex  impleretur. 

Omnia  fere  in  Sacra  Scriptura  vel  de  Christo  dicta  sunt,  vel  propter 
Eum. 


Quicquid  dubitationis  habet  homo  in  animo  auditis  Scripturis,  a  Christo 
non  recedat ;  cum  ei  fuerit  in  illis  Scriptura?  verbis  Christus  revelatus, 
intelligat  se  intellexisse.    Finis  Legis  Christus. 

Stellas  non  extinguit  nox  ;  sic  mentes  fidelium  adha?rentes  firmamento 
Scripturarum  non  extinguit  mundi  infidelitas. 

Qua:  in  Verbo  Dei  nobis  videntur  contradictiones,  conciliabit  Deus,  ut 
fideles  confirmet ;  sunt  quasi  nodi  in  quercu,  qui  earn  corroborant ;  sunt 
quasi  nodi  in  reti,  qui  id  constrirgunt. 

He  that  hath  God's  Word,  can  hear  His  Silence. 


Scriptura  crescit  cum  parvulis.  In  campo  Scripturarum  exercemur 
obscuris,  pascimur  apertis.  Sint,  Deus,  castas  deliciaa  mea?  Scriptura?  Tua; ; 
neque  fallar  in  eis,  nec  fallam  ex  eis. 

Scriptura  altitudine  superbos  irridet ;  profunditate  attentos  terret,  veri- 
tate  magnos  pascit,  afifabilitate  parvos  nutrit. 

Inhau-endum  est  Scripturis,  qua;  aperta;  sunt,  ut  ex  eis  revelentur  qua? 
obscura  sunt. 


Deus  Judscos  dispersit,  ut  Scriptura  in  omnibus  gentibus  testes 
haberet. 


3  2  M isccllanies. 

Judsei  Vi'tus  Testamentum  portantes  in  manibus,  sed  illud  non  iiitelli- 
geutes,  servi  sunt  Christianorum,  et  quasi  scriniarii  et  bajuli. 

Stultus  est  qui  non  credit  paucis  in  Scriptura  qme  restant  coinplendu, 
qui  tanta  in  Scriptura  prasdicta  videt  jam  completa. 

Venturas  Patres,  visus  nos  salvat,  Iesus  ; 
Tempora  mutantur,  non  variata  fides. 

Christi  sponsa  anima  est  vinclo  sociata  fideli. 


Nobis  curiositate  non  opus  est  post  Christum. 

Virginitas  anima?  est  intemerata  fides. 

BouAa  ^eoXoyor  yiveoBai  ;  ras  evro\as  (pvXacrae'  npa^is  iTrifiacris  Secoptas. 
(S.  Greg.  Naz.) 

Lac  Dei  cum  gypso  non  est  miscendum. 

Ut  credas,  operare ;  fides  merces  operanti  est. 

Fides  viam  recludit  intellectui ; 
Sed  mentis  oculos  claudit  infidelitas. 


Sicut  palato  est  pcena  non  sano  cibus, 
Haud  secus  iniquis  displicet  Verbum  Dei. 
Sapit  Dei  mel  cui  palatum  dat  fides. 

Fides  Catholica  crevit  et  claruit  oppositionibus  hsereticorum. 


Ex  Leonis  prostrati  cadavere  mel  fidem  pascit.    (Jud.  xiv.  8,  9.) 

Quomodo  Cheistum  Caput  habere  potest,  qui  Ejus  Corpus  dividit,  qua3 
est  Ecclesia  ? 


Quanta  schismatis  noxa  est,  quam  (testibus  Ignatio  et  Cypriano) 
martyrii  sanguis  non  eluit ! 

0  hseresis,  0  scbisma,  crudelis  meretrix,  erubesce  judicari  a  Salomone 
(1  Regg.  iii.  16 — 28)  :  mater  non  permisit  dividi  filium  suum,  tu  dividis 
Dominum  tuum ! 


Inter  bajreticos  laicis  sacerdotalia  munia  injungunt.  Scbisma  est  unitas 
illis. 


Quod  apud  multos  a  principio  unum  invenitur,  non  est  erratum  sed  tradi- 
tum.  Id  verum  quod  prius  traditum  ;  id  falsum  quod  posterius  immissum. 

Id  verius  quod  prius,  id  prius  quod  ab  initio. 

Impensum  precibus  tempus  pretiosius  auro  est ; 
Durat  mille  annos  bora  dicata  Deo. 


Oka,  ore,  corde,  vita. 


Volens  in  templo  orare,  in  te  ora ;  ita  age  ut  tcmplum  Dei  sis. 


Ethica  et  Spiritnalia. 


33 


In  proeellis  munJi,  ad  placidum  litus  Orationis  aucoia  fidel  oon- 
stringe  te. 


Non  vocis  est,  sed  cordis,  auditor  Deus. 


Corde  tuo  vigila,  mundique  exclude  tumultum, 
Oranti  ut  pateat  coelica  porta  tibi. 

Etiam  plorare  quod  non  bene  oras,  orare  est. 

Temet  siste  Deo  coram,  et  venerare  silenter  ; 
Prassentein  tota  eonspice  mente  Deum. 

Non  prohibet  Deus  recte  fieri  coram  hominibus,  vel  orando  vel  eleemo- 
synas  faciendo;  sed  sic  fieri,  ut  videamur  ab  hominibus.  Orans  coram 
hominibus  "  intra  in  cubiculum  cordis  tui ;  "  ciim  eleemosynas  facis  coram 
hominibus,  "  ne  sciat  sinistra  tua  quid  faciat  dextera  tua."  Quicquid 
facis  coram  hominibus,  fac  non  hominibus  sed  Deo.  Turba  hominum  sit 
tibi  solitudo  cum  Deo. 


Intentio  cordis  clamor  ad  Deum. 
Our  thoughts  are  heard  in  heaven. 

Si  clamas  ad  Deum,  clama  intus,  ubi  Deus  audit. 


Ita  fabulantur  Christiani,  ut  qui  sciant  Deum  audire.  (Tertullian.) 

Qui  Deum  tantummodo  asserit  Christum,  medicinam  negat  qua.  sanatus 
est ;  qui  hominem  tantummodo  asserit  Christum,  potentiam  negat  qua 
creatus  est. 


Ego  et  Pater  unum  sumus,  ait  Christus  (Joh.  x.  30).  Per  "  union" 
Arium  stravit,  per  "  sumus  "  Sabellium. 

In  effundendo  Spiritu  Sancto  utraque  Ghristi  natura  monstrata  est ; 
spiravit  ut  homo ;  dedit  Deum  Deus. 

Crux  Christi  fcransiit  a  loco  suppliciorum  ad  frontes  et  diademata  Im- 
peratorum  ;  si  tantus  honos  panes  Christi,  quantus  ferit  gloria  ? 

Christus  pro  nobis  suscepit  indebitam  mortem,  ut  nos  per  Eum  habe- 
remus  indebitam  vitam. 


In  primo  homine  (qui  fuit  Adam)  monstratum  est,  quid  liberum 
arbitrium  valeret  ad  mortem ;  in  secundo  Homine  (qui  est  Christus) 
monstratum  est  quid  gratia  valeret  ad  vitam. 

Totum  genus  humanum  sunt  quodammodo  duo  homines,  Adam  et 
Christus  ;  primus  homo  et  Secundus  ;  Mors  et  Vita. 

Quod  Deo  minus  est,  Deus  non  est. 

Deus  est  homo  factus  ;  quid  futurus  est  homo, 
Quern  propt  er  Ipse  fact  us  est  homo  Deus  P 

E'.ubescat  homo  esse  superbus,  propter  quern  humilis  factus  est  Deu-. 
VOL.  III.  D 


34  Miscellanies. 

Per  superbiam  lapsus  est  homo ;  humilitatem  Deus  adhibuit,  ut 
hominein  exaltaret. 


Magna  miseria  homo  superbus  ;  maxima  misericordia  Deus  humilis. 

Christus  orat  pro  nobis  ut  Sacerdos  noster ;  orat  in  nobis  ut  Caput 
nostrum  ;  oratur  a  nobis  ut  Deus  noster. 


Nemo  erigit  quidquam  ad  id  in  quo  ipse  est,  nisi  aliquantum  ad  id,  in 
quo  illud  est,  descendit.    Hinc  Deus  homo  factus  est. 


Impium  te  qua?sivit  Christus  ut  redimeret ;  inventum  te  et  redemptum 
anne  deseret  ? 


Qualem  te  faciet  Christus  Suis  divitiis,  qui  te  divitem  fecit  Sua 
paupertate  ? 

Credidit  latro  Christo  in  cruce  peudenti,  et  in  Paradisum  translatus  est ; 
quid  fiet  de  illis  qui  contemnunt  Christum  iu  coelo  regnantem? 

Deus  operatur  semper,  et  quietus  est. 
Deus  sapienter  utitur  malis  bene, 
Atqui  Diabolus  utitur  bonis  male ; 
Virus  Diabolus  melle  conficit  Dei. 


Quae  mundus  acta  negligit,  notat  Deus ; 
Quse  mundus  acta  laudat,  ignorat  Deus. 
Vilescat  omne,  quicquid  est  prater  Deum. 

Si  requiem  qiueris,  quaere  placere  Deo. 

Iu  corde  totus  Hie  figatur  tuo, 

Qui  propter  est  te  Christus  affixus  eruci. 

O  Eptoy  6  tfibs  c<TTavpa>Tai. 

Attende  triduum  Christi  cruciiixi,  sepulti  et  suscitati,  et  in  te  ipso 
Christum  reprcesenta. 

Fecerunt  civitates  duas  duo  amores,  amor  sui  terrenam,  amor  Dei 
ccelestem.   

Solus  se  novit  diligere,  qui  diligit  Deum.  Amor  est  vehiculum  quo 
portamur  ad  patriam.  Interroget  se  quisque  quid  amet,  et  inveniet  utrius 
civitatis  sit  civis. 


Quales  amores, 
Tales  mores. 


Deo  placebit  ille  cui  placet  Deus ; 
Sibi  placentes  displicebunt  Deo. 

Sanctus  sancte  sancta  tractat. 


Vive,  precor,  sed  vive  Deo;  nam  vivere  mundo 
Mortis  opus  ;  viva  est  vivere  vita  Deo. 

Hoc  sit  amare,  Deum  propter  amare  Deum. 


Ethica  et  Spirittialia. 


35 


Solus  se  amat,  qui  nihil  Deo  prseponit  vel  aequat. 

Unde  alii  sunt  aliis  sanctiores,  nisi  abundantius  habendo  inhabitatorem 

Deum  ?   

Oderunt  peccare  boni  Virtutis  amore  ; 
Tu  nihil  admittes  in  te  formidine  pcenseP 

Si  bene  vivere  volumus,  plus  amemus  quod  promittit  Deus,  quam  quod 
promittit  hie  mundus  ;  et  plus  timeamus  quod  minatur  Deus,  quain  quod 
minatur  mundus. 


Deum  nosse,  est  vivere;  Deum  nescire,  mori. 


Deo  servire,  regnare  est ;  Deo  non  obedire,  servum  esse  Diaboli. 


Quid  prodest  omnes  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 
Si  facienda  fugis,  vel  f'ugienda  facis  ? 


Philosophi  sine  Deo  non  sunt  periti,  sed  perituri. 

Hoc  est  nescire,  sine  Christo  plurima  scire  ; 

Si  Christum  bene  scis,  satis  est  si  plurima  nescis. 

Non  ex  persouis  probamus  fidem,  sed  ex  fide  personas. 

Tu  mihi  carcerem  minaris,  Ille  Gehennam. 


Sanctos  per  pravos  Deus  erudit  atque  coronat. 
Non  sunt  bona  opera  nisi  quae  per  fidem  et  caritatem  fiunt. 
Faith  the  root ;  Hope  the  flower ;  Love  the  fruit. 


Beata  vita  nisi  amatur,  non  habetur. 


Deus,  finis  nostrorum  desideriorum,  sine  fine  videbitur,  sine  fastidio 
amabitur,  sine  latigatione  laudabitur.    Ecce  quid  erit  finis  sine  fine. 


Eruditio  absque  dilectione  inflat,  dilectio  absque  eruditione  errat. 
Somnus  est  animi,  oblivisci  Deum. 


Deum  quserens,  gaudium  quaerit ;  sic  quseras,  ut  non  in  te  sed  in  Deo 
quajras.    Rectum  est  cor  apud  Deum,  quum  Deus  quseritur  propter  Deum. 

In  tantum  videbimus  Deum,  in  quantum  Ei  sumus  similes. 


A  Te  jubente  posse  meum  venit,  Deus. 
Quod  Tu  jubes,  da  posse,  dein  quod  vis  jube. 
Deus  jubendo,  quod  jubet,  tacit  utile. 

Verbum  Dei  jubentis  potestas  fit  hominis  audientis. 


Vita,  Christe,  quam  egisti, 
Vivat  sub  corde  meo, 
Vita,  quam  mihi  dedisti, 
Cela  tecum  in  Deo. 

D  2 


3  6  Miscellanies. 

Omne  prajcepturn  Dei  leve  est  amanti ;  ut  alae  volueri  nou  sarcina  sunt, 
sed  vehiculum. 


Nolentem  prsevenit  Gratia,  ut  velis ;  volentem  sequitur  Gratia,  ne 
frustra  velis. 


Quum  praemiatur  Deus  facta,  tua,  coronat  Deus  niunera  Sua. 

Quodeumque  tu  bene  feceris,  argumentum  est  quid  debeas  Deo. 

Nulla  facis  bona  tu,  nisi  quae  facit  ut  facias  tu. 

Nil  est  vis  humana,  Dei  si  gratia  desit : 
Qua?  recte  fiunt.  Tile  facit  facere. 


Ipsa  oratio  inter  munera  gratia;  deputatur.  Gratia  vocatur  quia  gratis 
datur. 


Quid  mihi  sum  sine  Te,  Deus  nieus,  nisi  dux  in  praeceps  ? 
God's  Grace  is  man's  Teacher. 


Eget  Gratia  Ratio,  utitirr  Gratia  Ratione. 


Deus  vult  humanam  voluntatem  esse  liberam. 

Si  volumus  defendere  liberum  arbitrium,  ne  oppugnemus  Gratiam,  per 
quam  Voluntas  humana  bene  utitur  libertate. 

Si  non  est  gratia  Dei,  quomodo  Deus  salvat  mundum  ?  Si  non  est 
liberum  arbitrium,  quomodo  Deus  judicat  mundum  ? 

Homo  memorial  sua.  non  rogit  facta  quorum  reminiscitur ;  sic  Deus 
praescientia  Sua  non  cogit  facienda  quae  praevidet. 

God  foresees  all  things,  but  forces  nothing. 

Justi  de  perseverantiae  pramio  eerti  sunt,  sed  de  perseverantia  sua  sunt 
incerti. 


In  gemmis  pectoralis  sacerdotalis  posuit  Deus  Urim  et  Thummim  (hoc 
est  illuminationes  et  ^er/ecft'owes)  ;  in  Scripturis  Sacris  et  Sacramentis 
infudit  gratiam,  ut  illuminemur  et  perficiamur. 

In  gemmas  Ecclesiae  Suae,  hoc  est,  in  animas  sanctas,  inspiravit  gra- 
tiam, ut  gemmae  fiant  et  splendeant  in  ccelesti  Hierusalem  in  sempiternum. 

Dormit  Adam  in  Paradiso,  et  ex  latere  dormientis  fit  Eva,  sponsa  ex- 
perrecti ;  dormit  Chbistus  in  cruce,  et  ex  .latere  fluunt  sacramenta,  per 
qua;  nascitur  et  vivit  Ecclf.sia,  sponsa  resurgentis  de  mortuis  et  in  ccelo 
regnantis.  Percussit  lancta.  latus  Christi  persecutor,  et  fudit  pretium 
Redemptor.  Christi  Sacramenta,  qua?  a  latere  percussi  profluxerunt,  per 
Christi  sacrificium  hdelibus  applicantur  in  vitam  aeternam. 


Sacramenta  non  salvant  infidelem,  sed  Deus  salvat  fideles  per  sacramenta. 

Si  modo  Christus  adest  nobis,  et  aranea  ruuro  est ; 
Sed  si  Christus  abest,  vel  niurus  aranea  fiet. 


Man's  Midnight  is  God's  Noon. 


EtJiica  ct  Spirititalia. 

Ut  Moysis  facies,  aliis  tua  fama  niteseat, 
Sed  ne  fac  speculum,  quod  tueare,  tibi. 

Laudari  metuas  muiidi  poptilaribus  auris, 
Ne  tu  judicio  dejiciare  Dei. 

Cum  tu  Iaudaris,  temet  coutemne  ;  sed  a  te 
Laudetur  per  te  Qui  cuncta  operatur,  et  in  te ; 
Redde  Deo  laudem,  ne  condemneris  ab  Illo. 


Ne  laudibus  tuis  laeteris  propter  te  laudatum,  sed  lteteris  propter  D 
gloriam,  et  utilitatem  proximi  tui. 

Ne  jactes  tua  facta  :  Deus  sua  dona  coronat ; 
Si  merita  enumeras,  quid  nisi  dona  Dei  ? 

Malis  displicere,  magna  laus  est. 

Pastor  qui  lupos  laudat,  odit  oves. 

Quanto  quisque  minus  mundi  venatur  honores, 
Tanto  cuique  dabit  prsemia  plura  Deus. 

Vse  homini  cui  auriga  superbia  est ! 
Si  Phaeton  es  tu,  te  manet  Eridanus. 


Sequitur  superbos  ultor  a  tergo  Dens. 

Privatio  gratia?  est  argumentum  superbia?- 

Simulatio  humilitatis  est  apex  superbia;. 

Gratia,  a  Deo  infusa,  concavo  humilitatis  recipitur,  convexo  superb 
expellitur. 


Scire  tuum  nihil  est,  nisi  te  scire  hoc  sciat  alter  ? 


On  travaille  trop  pour  la  gazette. 

Apostolus  Paulus  erat  omnibus  superior,  quia  optabat  omnes  sibi 
sequales. 


Superbia  cecidit  Diabolus,  humilitate  exaltatus  est  Christus. 
Non  ascenditur  nisi  per  humilitatem. 
Superbia  odit  consortium,  et  sola  cupit  eminere. 
Be  seen  to  do  good ;  but  do  not  do  good  to  be  seen. 
Ut  videare  bonus,  cura  sit  esse  bonus. 


Homines  laudant  te,  et  nil  sciunt ;  Deus  scit  omnia,  et  tacet. 


Qui  sese  attollit,  magna  cadet  ille  ruina, 
Contra  qui  sese  deprimit,  altus  erit. 


38  Miscellanies. 

In  recte  factis  vitanda  superbia;  nam  qui 
In  recte  factis  tollitur,  ille  cadit. 

Quid  prodest  dare  divitias  pauperi,  si  superbior  fis  dando,  quam  fueras 
possidendo  ? 

Quid  prodest,  tenuari  corpus  abstinentia,  si  intumescat  animus  superbia? 

Quid  prodest  vinum  non  bibere,  et  odio  inebriari? 

Quid  prodest,  pallere  jejunio,  et  livere  invidia? 

Meliores  et  sanctiores  sunt  conjugati  humiles  quam  superbientes  virgines. 

Magna  felicitas  a  felicitate  non  vinci. 

Malam  conscientiam  non  sanat  encomium  laudantis ;  bonam  conscien- 
tiain  non  lajdit  opprobrium  conviciantis. 

Hie  murus  aheneus  esto, 
Nil  conscire  sibi,  nulla  pallescere  culpa. 

Nulla  poena,  quanta  poena ! 

Sibi  superbus  qui  placet,  stulto  placet. 

Quid  magis  est  miserum  misero  baud  miserante  seipsum  ? 

Non  magna  loquimur,  sed  vivimus. 

"Afxeivov  aianrqv  teal  (ivai,  rj  Xakovvra  firj  elvai. 

Sperne  voluptates  ;  nocet  empta  dolore  voluptas. 

Sincerum  est  nisi  vas,  quodcunque  infundis  acescit. 

Spiritvis  templum,  Dominique  membrum 
Est  tuum  corpus  ;  simile  et  resurget 
Corpori  Christi,  modo  castitate 
Sanctificetur. 


Mortificatio  carnis  est  glorificatio  spiritiis. 

Christi  semper  praecursor  est  Johannes  Baptista,  et  prajparat  viam  Ei. 

Non  est  emendum  gaudium  volaticum 
Unius  hora?  vel  brevis  dieculae 
Magno  dolore  mentis  atque  corporis. 

Quomodo  a  cceno  potes  ascendere  ad  ccelum  ? 

Fastidire  voluptatem,  quam  magna  voluptas  ! 
Est  virtus,  licitis  abstinuisse  bonis. 


Mortifica  corpus,  carnem  crucifige  rebellem  : 
Sic  dabitur  capiti  pulcra  corona  tuo. 

Amor  rerum  terrenarum  viscum  est  alarum  spiritualium. 


Ethic  a  et  Spiritualia.  39 

Cogitemus  crucem,  et  divitias  lutum  putabimus. 
Vanis  carere  est  suave  suavitatibus. 


C  orporis  seruinnas  patior,  mentisque  dolores, 

Dulcibus  ut  vitiis  abstinuisse  velim; 
Ast  ego  quid  valeo  ?  nil,  si  Tua  gratia  desit : 

Oh  !  miserere  mei  Tu,  Deus,  et  fer  opem. 

Sobrietas  purget  quod  supra  sidera  surget 
Corpus,  et  est  sedes,  qua,  Deus  alme,  sedes. 

Summum  crede  nefas  animam  prseferre  pudori, 
Et  propter  vitam  vivendi  perdere  causas. 

Si  coram  hominibus  confiteberis  Cbristum, 
Coram  angelis  te  confitebitur  Christus ; 
Sed  si  negabis,  tu  negaberis  Cbristo. 

Christi  pudet  te  ?  pudeat  ut  tui  Christum  ! 

Qui  laudari  vult  ab  hominibus,  Christo  vituperante,  non  defendetur  ab 
lominibus,  Christo  judicante. 

'Eyyvs  pa^aipas  iyyvs  ea-rrjKas  6eov, 
Qeov  ptTai-v,  /cai  fura^v  6rjpl(ov. 

Crus  in  nervo,  cor  in  ccelo. 


Vox  martyrum,  "  Erue  me  a  timore  inimici." 
Uva  calcatur,  vinum  exprimitur. 
Rubus  in  eremo,  consummaris,  non  consumeris. 


"  Lilium  inter  spinas "  (Cant.  ii.  2)  sancta  Ecclesia,  sponsa  Christi. 
Lilium  inter  spinas"  sancta  omnis  anima  sponsa  Christi. 

Gemo  in  re, 
Gaudeo  in  spe. 

Gemis  in  area, 
Gaudebis  in  horreo. 


Ex  olea  liquidum  contusa  manat  olivum. 
Vita  stabulum  ;  mansio  ccelum. 


Herba  metitur,  et  fit  foenum  odoruin. 


Ignem  palea  timeat ; 
Auro  quid  f'aciet  ? 

Mittitur  vas  in  fornacem  ut  coquatur,  non  ut  frangatur. 

AfHictiones  flores  sunt,  quibus  nectitur  tua  corona  ccelestis. 

Non  est  ad  astra  mollis  a  terris  via. 


40 


Miscellanies. 


Chi  bene  mal  non  puo  soffrir, 
A  grand'  on  ore  non  puo  venir. 

Bona  facere  et  mala  pati,  regium  est,  imo  divinum. 

Sol,  nisi  cum  deficit,  spectatorem  non  habet. 

Grana  manent :  veuto  palese  rapiuntur  inanes. 

Qualis  sit  cujusque  fides,  tribulatio  probat. 

Mercenarios  a  pastoribus  persecutio  discernit. 

To  £j)v  6  XpifTToy  ecrri,  Ka\  KepBos  6avelv. 
Christus  mihi  sit  vivere,  et  mori  lucrum. 


Lympha,  crucis  ligno  injecto,  dulcescit  amara.    (Exod.  xv.  25.) 
Naufragium  metuens  dextra.  crucis  arripe  lignum. 
Crux  scbola  Christian!.    Crux  scala  coeli.    Crux,  Lux,  Dux,  Lex,  Rex. 


Eris  liber,  si  fueris  servus,  liber  peccatis,  servus  Christi :  servitus 
Diaboli  pessima  servitus  ;  servitus  Christi,  uuica  libertas. 

Voluntas  libera  tanto  liberior  quanto  sanior ;  et  tanto  sanior,  quanto 
divinaj  voluntati  subjectior. 

Liberum  arbitrium  divinae  gratise  donum  est. 

Voluntas  quomodo  dici  potest  esse  libera,  si  vincentibus  et  vincientibus 
cupiditatibus  sit  subdita  ? 

Libertas  vocatur  nonnullis,  potestas  aliis  et  sibi  nocendi. 

Te  committe  Deo  securus,  et  omnia  perfer ; 
Non  plus  tentabit  quam  tolerare  dabit. 

Exemplo  Suo  docuit  Christus  quid  non  timeres  et  quid  sperares. 
Mortem  timebas — mortuus  est  Christus ;  de  resurrectione  desperabas — 
resurrexit  Christus ;  pro  te  mortuus  est  et  resurrexit  Christus  in  eo 
corpore  quod  accepit  a  te. 

Suaviter  natat,  cujus  Deus  sustiuet  men  turn. 

Non  littus  ultra  sceviunt  fluctus  maris. 

When  the  shore  is  won  at  last, 
Who  will  count  the  billows  past  ? 

Patimur  adversa,  ne  viator,  tendens  ad  patriam,  stabulum  pro  domo 

diligat.  —  

Mr)  (3XtTT€  ra  i&ta,  aXXa  ra  aidia. 

MijS'  vnvov  paXaKo'iaiv  eV  oppaari  irpoahe^aaBai, 
Tlpiv  tS>v  rjfiepivaiv  epya>v  rpis  tKaarov  iir(\6elv, 
"  Ilr)  Traptfir]v;  t'l  o°  cpe£a  ;  ri  pot  dcav  ovk  (Tehea6r)  ;" 


Ethica  ct  Spiritnalia.  41 

XaXf7ra  ra  Kaka. 


Labor  omnia  vincit 
Improbus. 

Nil  sine  magno 
Vita  labore  dedit  mortalibus. 


Tcbv  novav  TT<o\ovaiv  rjp-f  iravra.  raydd'  ol  6eol. 


Ononis  vita  tentatio  est. 


Detrectans  curam  Virtutem  deseris  ipsam. 

Quanto  plus  rem  communem  curas  quam  propriam,  tanto  amplius  te 
profecisse  scias. 

Privatus  illis  census  erat  brevis  ; 
Commune  magnum. 

<bpeva>v  paw's  jxni  paWov,  rj  fiv8us  rv^rjs.    (S.  Greg,  Naz.) 

Tlkecov  Knnos, 
nXeop  Kepbos. 

More  pain 
More  gain. 


Si  vocat  officium,  propera  parere  vocanti, 

Et  quanto  minus  ire  voles,  magis  ire  memento. 

Making  your  hardest  task  your  best  delight. 

Ex  atra  veniunt  clarissima  fulgura  nube, 
Aurum  de  rutilo  clarius  igne  micat. 


Torquens  membra  lues  animodat  seepe  salutem  ; 
Caedendo  sanat  vivificatque  Deus. 


Merses  profundo,  pulcrior  evenit. 
Quod  dubitas,  ne  feceris. 


Ne  facere  id  dubites  quod  certo  scis  faciendum  ; 
Ne  fac  quod  dubitas  an  liceat  facere. 

Ea  quae  constat  esse  peccata  nullo  bona?  causaj  obtentu  facienda  sunt. 

Him,  only  him,  the  hand  of  God  defends 
Whose  means  are  fair  and  spotless  as  his  ends. 

<&t\uTip(lcr6e  fjcrv)(a^€LV,  Kai  Trpdo-aeiv  tci  t'fiia. 

Parum  est  abstinere  a  malo,  nisi  fiat  bonum  ;  parum  est  nemini  nocere, 
nisi  studeas  prodesse  quam  plurimis. 

2TTapTT]v  eXa^es'  ravT-qv  Ki'crpei ' 
Tor  6e  MvKrjvas  Tjpets  ifiia. 


42  Miscellanies. 

Ut  quic  necesse  sunt  agas,  ea  tantum  agas. 

Remember  needless  things  to  shun, 
That  needful  ma}-  by  thee  be  done. 

Duos  lepores  qui  sequitur,  is  neutrum  capit. 

Nemo  sic  debet  esse  otiosus  ut  utilitatem  negligat  proximi ;  nec  sic 
negotiosus,  ut  contemplationem  deserat  Dei. 

Quserit  otium  sanctum  amor  Veritatis  ;  suscipit  negotium  justum  neces- 
sitas  Caritatis. 

Est  temporalis  utilis  confusio  ; 
Confunde  nunc  te  poenitentia  volens, 
Ne  te  perenni  morte  confundat  Deus, 
Et  sempiterna  destruat  confusio. 

Si  te  perturbas,  non  perturbaberis  Illo. 

Tox/s  Kaipovs  Kara/jLovdavf,  Tov  virip  Katpov  npocrboKa. 

Tbv  Kaipuv  e'£ayopd£ov. 

 Turning  the  dust 

Of  servile  opportunity  to  gold. 

Qui  sunt  inimici  Ecclesia?  ?  Pagani,  Mobammedani,  Judaei.  Qui  sunt 
iniiniciores?    Mali  Christian!.    Qui  sunt  inimicissimi  ?    Mali  sacerdotes. 

Tu  qui  Christi  sacerdos  es,  audi  vocem  Magistbi. 

Bonus  pastor  non  sua  quaerere  debet,  sed  impendere. 

Lectione,  oratione,  meditatione  pectus  tuum  sit  templum  Dei. 

Ut  sis  concha,  prius  tu  debes  esse  canalis  ; 

Non  prius  effundes  quam  lympha  largus  abundes. 

Praesis  ut  prosis. 

Manus  tua  sit  ad  clavum,  oculus  ad  ccelum. 


Non  proficere,  est  deficere. 

'E7riCTK07ra)f  TTolpaive  irmpvlov  6eov' 
"Ayeip',  68rjyei,  vvcrue  paj38ov)(<p  xfP1' 
Ka\  crrccpavov  e|eiy  'Ap^nroipevos  rrdpa. 

Error  magistri  tentatio  populi.   (Vine.  Lerin.) 

The  Teacher's  error  is  the  people's  trial;  and  so  much  the  greater  trial, 
the  greater  the  Teacher  is.  {Hooker.) 

Qui  erubescit  doceri,  non  discet,  qui  irascitur  discenti,  non  docebit. 


EtJiica  et  Spiritualia. 


43 


Tllius  doctoris  libenter  audio  vocem,  qui  non  sibi  plausum,  sed  mihi 
planctum,  movet.  Verus  doctor  placere  studet  rebus,  non  verbis;  non 
servit  verbis,  sed  verba  serviunt  illi.  Prins  precare,  deinde  praxlica.  Ante 
sis  orator  quam  dictor.    Tutius  auditur  Veritas  quam  pra;dicatur. 

In  pradicando  ne  dicas  nova,  sed  nove. 

Nisi  ardeas  quum  prsedicas,  non  accendes  alios  pra?dicando. 

"  Orate  et  arate." 
"  Novate  novale." 


Ignominia  sarerdotum  est,  propriis  studere  divitiis.  Divinas  Scripturas 
ssepius  lege,  imo  nunquain  de  manibus  tuis  sacra  lectio  deponatur;  disce 
quod  doceas;  non  confundant  opera  tua  sermonem  tuum,  ne  quis  tibi 
respondeat,  Our  qua?  dicis  ipse  non  facis  ?  Lacrymas  auditorum  laudes 
tuse  sint.  Nolo  te  declamatorem  esse,  sed  mysteriorum  peritum  et  sacra- 
mentorum  Dei  tui  eruditissimum.  Verba  volvere  et  celeritate  dicendi 
apud  imperitum  vulgus  ad  miration  em  sui  facere,  indoctorum  hominum  est. 
Nec  rusticus  et  simplex  frater  ideo  se  sanctum  putet,  si  nihil  noverit  ; 
nec  peritu.s  et  eloquens  cestimet  lingua  sanctitatem.  Cogitemus  crucem 
Christi,  et  divitias  lutum  esse  putabimus.  Cave  ne  linguam  aut  aures 
babeas  prurientes  ;  ne  ipse  aliis  detrahas,  aut  alios  audias  detrahentes. 
Nemo  invito  auditori  libenter  refert.  Sagitta  in  lapidem  non  figitur. 
Discat  detractor  non  detrahere,  dum  te  videt  non  libenter  audire  detra- 
bentem.    (S.  Hieron.) 

Auditor  verbi  debet  esse  similis  mundis  animalibus  (Levit.  xi.  3),  qua; 
ruminant  meditando,  et  unguem  findunt  secure  ambulando. 

Melius  est  dubitare  de  occultis  quam  litigare  de  incertis. 

In  necessariis  Unitas,  in  dubiis  Libertas,  in  omnibus  Caritas. 


In  una  fide  nibil  officit  Ecclesi»  consuetudo  in  ritibus  et  ceremoniis 
di versa.    (S.  Greg.  M.) 

Aia(f)o}vla  eda>i>  (in  ritibus  Ecclesiarum  diversarum)  ofilvmav  nto-T«oi 
(Twi(jTT](Ti.    (S.  Iren.) 

Terreo  quia  timeo. 

Qui  sacerdotes  non  sunt,  sacerdotalia  ne  affectent,  utcunque  eloquentia 
et  ingenio  clari.  Qui  sacerdotes  sunt,  ne  contemnantur  a  grege  suo,  etsi 
eloquentia  et  ingenio  non  enitescant.  Quid  enim  prodest  clavis  aurea,  si 
aperire  quod  volumus  non  potest  ?  quid  obest  clavis  lignea,  si  potest  ? 

Tentatur  rebus  patientia  nostra  molestis  ; 
Vincit  qui  patitur ;  vincitur  impatiens. 

Non  habet  Dei  Caritatem  qui  non  amat  Eeclesia?  Unitatem.  Sacra- 
menta  possunt  esse  in  scbismate,  sed  non  prosunt  nisi  in  Ecclesite  unitate, 
imo  etiam  obsunt. 


Cum  Caritate  proderunt  cbarismata, 

Sed  Caritas  si  desit,  haud  quidquam  valet. 


44 


M  iscellanics. 


Egregia  est  virtus,  mores  tolerare  maligaos, 
Paciricoque  hostes  pacis  amare  animo. 

Melior  est  in  malis  factia  humilis  lamentatio,  quam  in  bonis  faetis 
superba  gloriatio. 

Perge  viam  sublimitatis  pede  humilitatis. 

Qui  phreneticuni  ligat,  et  qui  letbargicum  excitat,  ambobus  molestus, 
ambos  amat. 


Beatus  qui  amat  amicum  in  Deo,  et  inimicum  propter  Deum. 
Irasci  hominis  est ;  cessare  ab  ira,  Christian!. 


Laudabilius  est  leniter  accipere  corrigentem,  quam  acriter  corrigere 
deviantem. 


Tlaiovcriv  abacas,  diard^ovcri  nayvrjTts* 

Still  in  thy  right  hand  carry  gentle  peace, 

To  silence  envious  tongues  ;  be  just  and  fear  not. 

Magis  monendo  quam  minando  proficis. 

'AXr/deitiv  £v  ay  any. 
Veritas  maxima  Caritas. 


Christus  Se  Veritatem  appellavit,  non  Consuetudinem. 
Vera  Caritas  vacua  mercede  non  est,  sed  non  est  mercenaria. 


Nil  ilium  lsedet  qui  suaviter  utitur  hoste, 
Si  recte  tractas,  hostis  amicus  erit. 


Quicunque  fauia?  detrahit  volens  mese, 
Invitus  addit  ille  mercedi  mese, 
Si  detrahentem  caritate  prosequor, 
Pro  detrahente  supplicaturus  Deum. 

Ne  mala  redde  malis  ;  pro  detrectantibus  ora  : 
Fortia  sunt  animis  mitibus  arma  preces. 

Fortior  est  qui  se,  quam  qui  fortissima  vincit 
Oppida ;  qui  rex  est,  imperat  ipse  sibi. 

Iram  qui  vincit,  hostem  vincit  maximum. 

Bis  vincit,  qui  se  vincit  in  victoria. 

There  will  come  a  time,  when  three  words  uttered  with  charity  and 
meekness  will  receive  a  far  more  blessed  reward  than  three  thousand 
volumes  written  with  disdainful  sharpness  of  wit.    (Richard  Hooker.) 


1  S.  Greg.  Naz.  de  S.  Athanasio. 


EtJiica  et  Spiritualia.  45 

Ni^e,  a>s  6tov  dd\r)TT)S. 

Sr^t  eSpaltis,  w  aK)xa>v  TVTTTUfxtvos. 

Ne  propter  homines  vitia  diligas,  neque 
Homines  vitiosos  vitia  propter  oderis  ; 
Errans  ametur,  ejus  errores  fuge  ; 
Pacem  cum  hominibus,  bellum  cum  vitiis,  habe. 


Ne  ametis  amicorum  vitia,  si  amatis  amieos. 

Melius  est  cum  severitate  diligere,  quam  sine  veritate  negligere. 

Nemo  potest  vere  amicus  esse  hominis,  nisi  priiis  amicus  fuerit  Veri- 
tatis. 


Non  omne  quod  libet  licet,  nec  omne  quod  licet  expedit. 

Omnia  libera  sunt  per  fidem,  omnia  serva  per  caritatem. 

Caritas  alios  parturit,  cum  aliis  infirmatur,  ad  alios  se  inclinat,  ad 
alios  se  erigit,  aliis  severa,  aliis  blanda,  omnibus  serva,  nullis  inimica. 


Melius  est  ut  scandalum  oriatur,  quam  ut  Veritas  deseratur. 


Bona;  res  neminem  scandalizant  nisi  malam  mentem. 
Melius  est  ut  pereat  unus,  quam  unitas. 


De  mundi  spinis  roseam  tibi  necte  coronam  ; 
iEternas  gignit  spinea  virga  rosas. 

Nullus  sanctorum  in  hac  vita,  lacrymas  non  habet ;  imo  quanto  quisque 
sanctior  est,  tanto  fit  ejus  in  orando  Hetus  uberior 

Molle  rotas  oleum  accelerat ;  corrodit  acetum. 


Exercent  acuuntque  bonos  mala  ;  tu  bonus  esto  ; 
Ne  vincare  malis,  sed  mala  vince  bono. 

Martyrem  facit  non  pojna,  sed  causa. 

Facit  coronas  Mors  catenas  Martyrum. 


Quid  sibi  plaudit  inimicus  meus  ?  flagellum  de  eo  facit  Pater  ccelestis 
mi'iis  ut  me  erudiat  ad  patriam  meam  sempiternam. 

.Alois  est  acquisita  in  Adam  peccando,  justitia  in  Christo  impletur 
inoriendo. 

Mortuus  est  Christus,  per  mortem  ut  Mors  moreretur. 

Vive  quotidie  ut  mox  moriturus,  si  mori  vis  ut  semper  victurus. 

Veritas  in  ore  regnet ;  Caritas  in  pectore  ; 
Castitasque  Puritasque  in  ore,  corde,  corpora. 


Persecutoribus  sola.  Caritate  resistitur. 


46  Miscellanies. 

Injuria  inimici  non  laedit  te,  sed  lsedit  te  odium  tuum  iniiniei  tui ; 
dilige  iniinieum  tuum,  et  injuria  inimici  tui  fiet  beneficium  tibi. 

Magis  te  vastat  ira  tua  irascendo,  quatn  inimicitia  inimici  tui  inimi- 
cando. 


Qui  fraudes  alii  fabricat,  sibi  fabricat  ipsi : 
Subdolus  insidiis  fallitur  ipse  suis. 

Ot  a\>TU>  koku.  reu^f!  avrjp  aXXco  xa/ca  rev^av. 

Malum  consilium  consultori  est  pessimum. 

Nemo  non  prius  in  se,  quam  in  alterum,  peccat. 

Ecclesia?  qui  spargit,  colligit  sibi. 

Amicus  certus  in  re  incerta  cernitur. 


Qui  suadet,  sua  det. 

Bis  dat,  qui  cito  dat. 

Da  omni  petenti ;  sed  non  omnia  petenti. 

Pars  benefici  est,  quod  petitur  si  belle  neges. 

Seinina  committis  terrse  ;  committere  Christo 
An  dubitas,  veras  Qui  tibi  reddet  opes  P 

Committis  terrse,  fructus  et  colligis  amplos  ; 
Committis  Christo ;  num  peritura  times  ? 

Caritas  accrescit  usu,  largitate  ditior. 

Lucrum  in  loco  negligere  maximum  est  lucrum. 

Damnum  est  vocandum  cum  mala  fama  lucrum. 


Lucraris,  faciens  pietatis  nomine  sumptum.  (Tertullian.) 

Oratio  sine  eleemosj'na  sterilis  est  et  inefficax.    (S.  Cyprian.) 

Tarn  deest  avaro  quod  habet  quam  quod  non  habet. 

Desunt  inopias  multa,  avaritia;  omnia. 

Ei  XPHMAT'  e'a-Tiv,  aCpeXd  to.  KTHMATA. 

Prudens  an  optas  esse  mercator?  Deo 
Irupende  tempus,  pauperi  pecuniam. 

Cum  bonum  facis,  bilariter  fac ;  si  tristis  facis,  fit  de  te  magis  quam 
facis. 

Nemo  invitus  bene  facit,  etiam  si  bonum  sit  quod  facit. 


Ethica  et  Spiritualia.  47 

H>i\u£ei>oi  els  dXXi'jXnvs,  i'wev  yoyyvap-div.  Ei>/xfrd8oT<H,  kowwvlkol.  Xpclais 
dy'ioiv  KoivcovuvvTfs.    'IXapov  Sorqv  dyanu  6  6(6s.     O  eXeaiv,  iv  iXapurrjri. 

Imperat  aut  servit  collecta  peeunia  cuique. 

Non  possidet,  sed  possidetur,  qui  sibi 
Vult  esse  dives,  atque  pauper  est  Deo. 

Non  possidenteni  multa  vocaveris 
Recte  beatum  ;  rectiiis  occupat 
Nomen  beati,  qui,  &e. 

Contracto  melius  parva  cupidine 
Vectigalia  porrigam,  &c. 

Quas  dederis,  solas  semper  babebis  opes. 

Da,  dum  tempus  babes  ;  tibi  propria  sit  manus  baeres. 
Auferet  id  nemo  quod  dabis  ipse  Deo. 

Dives  fidelis  aurum  arenam  deputat. 

Non  plus  habendo,  at  minus  egendo,  dives  es. 

Invidus  alterius  macrescit  rebus  opimis  ; 
Invidia  Siculi  non  invenere  tyranni 
Majus  tormentum. 

Ira  furor  brevis  est ;  animum  rege,  qui  nisi  paret 
I  mperat. 

Tu  ne  cede  malis,  sed  contra  audentior  ito. 


Aude,  bospes,  contemnere  opes,  et  te  quoque  dignum 
Finge  Deo  ;  rebusque  veni  non  asper  egenis. 

Divitia?  grandes  bomini  sunt  vivere  parce 
iEquo  animo. 

Regum  asquabat  opes  animis. 

Titulis  et  fascibus  olim 
Major  habebatur  donandi  gloria. 

Nemo  kwditur  nisi  a  seipso. 

Nemo  malus  felix. 


Suaviter  in  modo, 
Fortiter  in  re. 


Dimidium  1'acti  qui  cuupit  babet.    Sapere  aude. 

Actu  severus,  atqtie  verbo  serius, 
Vultu  serenus  esto,  tranquillue  statu. 


Miscellanies. 


Xe  facias  aliis,  quod  tu  fieri  tibi  non  vis; 
Atque  aliis  facito,  quod  tibi  vis  fieri. 

Condemnans  alios  tu  condemnaberis  ipse  ; 
Sed  si  condones,  tibi  condonabitur  ipsi. 

Tu  servum  alienum  judicas,  fratrem  tuum  ? 
Omnes  tribunal  ad  Dei  constabimus. 

Iratus  fratri  plaeabis  quomodo  Pateem  ? 

Detrahere  et  detralienti  auscultare,  utrumque  damnab 

Ille  est  perfectus  vir,  qui  non  labitur  ore, 
Nec  tacitus  pravas  avida.  bibit  aure  loquelas. 


Xlavaal  pe  to'is  wa\  fi\aa(pr]pa)V. 

Quisquis  amat  dictis  absentem  rodere  amieum, 
Hanc  mensam  indignam  noverit  esse  sibi. 

"Kalpovri  avy^aip  '  e'apev  i{k\i]Kiov  peXrj. 

Ovtoi  avvtydeiv,  aXXu  avp(pikeiv  efpvv. 

Suus  cuique  attributus  est  error  ; 

Sed  non  vidernus  mantiose  quod  in  tergo  est. 

' ApcTciicrLp  (i'XXov  p>)  (p66vet,  avy^aipe  be' 
Miae'is  aeavT'iv  el  (pOoveif,  (ptXwv  (pikers. 
'AAXour  6  piaa>v  civtov  i-^6a'ipu>v  arvyel, 
'O  §'  aWov  dyarru>i>  alros  abrbv  oXpeXel. 
2i)  p>]  ra  aavTOv,  nXrju  ra  Oarepov,  aKimei. 

Ama  bonam  famam  inimici  tui. 

Secreto  amicos  admone,  lauda  palam. 


Qui  fratris  animam  diligit,  salvat  suam  ; 
Qui  fratris  animain  negligit,  perdit  suani. 

Vis  invenire  tu  bonos  ?  esto  bonus. 


Fides  habeatur  ;  obligat  fides  fidem. 


Ne  contemnaris,  nullum  contemnere  debes. 

Etiarn  capillus  unus  babet  umbram  suam. 

Quid,  de  quoque  viro,  et  cui  dicas,  saspe  videto. 

Chi  compra  terra 
Compra  guerra. 

Oi/coj  t/x'Aos  (hkos  "ipiaros. 

Alium  silere  quod  voles,  primus  sile. 


Ethica  et  Spirittialia.  49 

Ta  ixavr  dXij6W ',  opdov  &Xrj6et  del. 
Magna  est  victoria,  vine  a  veritate. 
Loquendum  est  ut  vulgus,  sentiendum  est  ut  sapientes. 
Si  vis  currentem  prendere,  curre  cito. 
Freno  indorato  non  migliora  il  cavallo. 
Quid  Cffico  cum  speculo  ? 


Acqua  turbida  non  fa  specchio. 


Melius  in  via  Veritatis  claudicare,  quam  praeter  viam  fortiter  ambuJare. 


Uav  npdypa  e'x«  8vo  \aftds. 


Eir  avrjp  oioViy  avrjp. 


Ta  /caXa  Ka\a>s  yeveo~da>. 


Ovk  ev  ra)  peyukai  to  (S,  dXXa  iv  tw  ev  to  p<-ya. 


Deliberandum  est  diu,  quod  statuendum  est  semel. 


Bon  urn  opus  intentio  facit,  si  intentionem  fides  dirigit  per  legem  Dei 
ad  gloriam  Dei. 


Non  scribit,  cujus  carmina  nemo  legit. 
Curse  leves  loquuntur,  ingentes  stupent. 
Canes  timidi  vehementius  latrant. 


Vasa  inania  magniloquentius  sonant. 

Neu  sis  superbus  extra  viam,  neu  piger  sis  in  via. 

Qui  nihil  audet,  nunquam  gaudet. 

Consilio  melius  vincas  quam  iracundia. 

Sapiens  senescit,  non  segnescit. 
VTjpdaKd  8'  alel  7roXXn  8t§ao~K6pcvos. 

Lenior  et  melior  fis  accedente  senecta, 
Ut  vinum  longo  mitescit  mollius  usu  ? 

Suavissima  vita  est,  sentire  indies  se  fieri  meliorem. 


Xpwoy  no\vTe\eo~TaTov  avaXwpa. 

Nulla  nisi  temporis  honesta  avaritia  est. 
VOL.  III.  E 


50  Miscellanies. 

Assuesce  vivere  cum  Angelis,  vivendo  ut  Angelus. 

Noli  sequi  spin  turn  tuum,  si  vis  habere  Spiritum  Dei. 

Longum  tibi  videtur?  est  citum  Deo  ; 
Temet  Deo  subjunge;  tunc  fiet  cito. 

Multos  peccare  non  pudet,  quos  agere  pcenitentiam  pudet. 

De  vulnere  suo  non  erubescunt,  sed  de  vulneris  ligatura. 

Principiis  obsta ;  sero  rnedicina  paratur 
Quum  mala  per  longas  invaluere  moras. 

Ne  fluites  dubire  momento  pendulus  horse  ; 
Te  committe  Deo ;  satis  est  sua  cura  diei ; 
Mr)  peTeu>p[£eade,  rfj  rjpepa  apxerov  avrr/s 
'H  KdKia'  TreiOeade  6ew,  Kai  arepyere  Ttavra. 

M17  pep\jfipoipos  'icrdi,  ynyyvcrpcov  8'  urep 
Kay  nacri  ^aipcav  ev^apifTTias  dtdov. 

Tvpj3a£et  Trepl  TroXXd'  povov  8'  evos  eone  dvay<r]. 
Mr)8ev  pepipvwv  navra  r<5  6ea>  pedes. 

Corporis  occisor  non  est  metuendus ;  at  Ille 

Qui  mandare  potest  corpusque  animamque  Gehennas. 

Mala  mors  non  est  vocauda,  quam  bona  vita  prajcesserit. 

Non  potest  male  mori,  qui  bene  vixerit. 

Qualis  vita, 
Finis  ita. 


.lEstus  est  saeculi,  sed  umbra  magna  sub  alis  Dei. 

Diabolus  tantum  no3  tentare  permittitur,  quantum  expedit  proficien- 
tibus. 


Dicimus  autem 
Hos  quoque  felices,  qui  ferre  incommoda  vita? 
Nec  jactare  jugum  vita  didicere  magistra. 

Aeivos  os  debv  crej3ei.  Sapiens  dominabitur  astris.  Bonus  si  servit, 
regnat ;  malus  si  regnat,  servit. 

Laudandi  sunt,  qui  nolunt  cum  muudo  florente  florere,  et  cum  mundo 
pereunte  perire. 

Quantis  laboribus  in  tempore  1'atigant  se  homines,  ut  in  seternum  sint 
infelicissimi ! 

Si  divitias  a  nobis  diliguntur,  ibi  acerventur  ubi  nunquam  perib  unt, 
hoc  est,  in  ccelo ;  si  honor,  quseratur  ibi  ubi  nemo  erit  malignus ;  si 
salus  diligitur,  ibi  desideretur  ubi  nemo  lauguescet,  nemo  morietur,  sed 
omnes  vivent  in  aeternuni. 


Ethica  et  Spiritualia.  5 1 

Felicitas  quem  nulla  corrumpit  placens, 
Furore  nulla  t'ranget  infelicitas. 


Omnes  Virtutes  Aniore  consummantur. 


Temperantia  est  Amor,  Deo  se  integrum  incorrupturaque  servans ; 
Fortitudo  est  Amor,  omnia  propter  Deum  facile  perferens ;  Justitia  est 
Amor,  Deo  serviens.et  ob  hoc  bene  imperanscaeteris,  qua?  homini  subjecta 
sunt ;  Prudentia  est  Amor,  bene  discernens  ea  quibus  adjuvetur  ad  Deum 
ab  iis  quibus  impediri  potest  a  Deo.    (S.  Aug.) 

Si  sursum  est  cor,  sicci  sunt  oculi. 

Srevrj  rj  nvkrj,  oi%  rj  nnXis. 
Via  longa  et  arcta ;  sed  urbs  ampla. 

Per  angusta  itur  ad  augusta. 

Angustus  callis  spatiosam  ducit  ad  urbem. 

Via,  angusta  laboranti,  fit  ampla  amanti. 

Amas  habere  quod  Christus  ?  ne  time  pati  quod  Christus  passus  est. 
"  Ego  sum  Via,  Veritas,  Vita,"  ait  Christus ;  Via  est,  qua  itur  ;  Veritas, 
ad  quam  pervenitur ;  Vita,  in  qua  manetur. 

Felix  est,  non  qui  habet  quod  amat,  sed  qui  amat  quod  amandum  est, 
et  quod  semper  est  habiturus. 

In  qua  peregrinus  ambulas  mundi  via, 

Hoc,  quod  perennem  ad  patriam  ducit,  placet. 

Vitae  nostras  principium  mortis  quoque  est  exordium. 

The  Martyr's  Deathday  is  his  Birthday. 

Ka\6v  )xol  to  bvvai  arro  tov  Koapov,  iva  (Is  6tbv  dva.Tci\a>. 

Claudere  oculos  mundo,  et  aperire  Christo. 

Fratres  nostros,  qui  in  Christo  decesserunt,  non  amisimus,  sed  prse- 
misimus. 


Oh  utinam  possim  pennis  volitare  columbas, 
Ocius  ut  nidum  labar  ad  astherium  ! 

Deargentemus  pennas  nostras  in  conversatione  Christi.    (S.  Bernard  ) 

ZtoTjv  o~v  ri)v  o~i)v  fit]  (p'CKti,  prjde  arvyei' 
Ev  (rjv,  ouov         to  8e  iroaov  deai  peOa. 

Tvw6i  aeavTov. 
Tv£>6i  Kaipuv. 
Mq&W  ayav. 
MeTpov  apio-Tov. 
MfXeTT)  to  ituv. 


5  2  Miscellanies. 

Ti  /3i'os  ;  /nfXf'rr;  davarov. 

0  quam  miserum,  nescire  mori! 

In  hoc  mundo  fructuose  dicamus,  "  Omnia  transeunt,"  ne  postea  in- 
i'ructuose  dicamus,  "  Omnia  transierunt  "  ! 

In  navigatione  vitse  tuas,  ne  naves  tecum  navigantes  contempleris,  sed 
astra  super  te  splendentia,  et  navim  tuam  dirigentia  ad  portura  asternum. 

Illi  mors  gravis  occubat, 
Qui  notus  nimis  omnibus 
Ignotus  moritur  sibi.  [Seneca.) 

Vive  memor  leti ;  fugit  hora ;  hoc  quod  loquor  inde  est. 

Quid  diu,  ubi  finis  ? 

Omne  tempus  pusillum  est ;  quid  enim  tarn  exiguum,  quam  quod  festi- 
nat  ut  non  sit? 

Hseredi  aeternitatis  Adam  vixit  heri. 


Omne  Tempus  quam  breve  est !    iEternitas  quam  longa ! 

Habitas  in  silentio  Deus,  solus,  magnus  ;  spargens  pcenales  caecitates 
super  illicitas  cupiditates. 

Vffi  tibi,  flumen  moris  humani,  volvens  in  mare  formidolosum  Evaa  filios, 
quod  vix  transeunt  qui  Lignum  Crucis  conscenderint. 

Naufragium  fugis,  et  plumbum  rerurn  terrenarum  amplecteris  !  Accipe 
Crucis  lignum,  et  natabis. 

Civitatis  ccelestis  rex  Veritas ;  lex  Caritas,  modus  ^Iternitas. 

Mors  est  ventura ;  ne  fac  quae  scis  nocitura. 

Our  Millenniums  hang  on  our  Moments. 

Horae  pereunt,  et  imputantur. 


Deus  quaedam  punit  in  hoc  mundo,  ne  divina  providentia  non  credatur  ; 
sed  multa  non  punit  in  hoc  mundo,  ut  futurum  judicium  semper  expec- 
tetur. 


Dies  mortis  tuoe  et  judicii  aeterni  ignoratur  a  te,  ut  omnis  dies  vitae  tuae 
observetur  a  te. 


Qualis  quisque  moritur,  talis  judicabitur. 


Respice  finem. 
Si  recte  vivis,  tibi  mors  quid  obest  morituro? 
Omnem  crede  diem  tibi  diluxisse  supremum, 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  53 

Sole  oriente,  tui  reditus  a  morte  memento  ; 
Sis  memor  oceasus,  sole  cadente,  tui. 


Meditate  daily  on  the  five  last  things ;  Death,  Resurrection,  Heaven, 
Hell,  and  Eternity. 

Consider  all  things  with  regard  to  ETERNITY. 

Ta>  0f<u  86£a. 
SOLI  DEO  GLORIA. 


TRANSLATION  OF  THE  FOREGOING. 

Many  of  the  preceding  Maxims  are  in  Latin  verse,  and 
can  hardly  be  translated  adequately  into  English. 

ETHICAL  and  SPIRITUAL  MAXIMS,  partly  collected,  paetlt 

COMPOSED,  BY  THE  BISHOP  OF  LINCOLN,  FOE  THE  USE  OF  THE 
STUDENTS  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL,  LINCOLN. 

Lord,  be  Thy  "Word  my  rule, 

Therein  may  I  rejoice  ; 
Thy  Glory  be  my  aim, 

Thy  holy  Will  my  choice; 

Thy  Promises  my  hope, 

Thy  Providence  my  guard, 
Thine  Arm  my  strong  support, 

Thyself  my  sure  reward. 

The  Law  of  God  thy  course  ;  His  Glory  be  thy  goal. 

Nature  is  to  God  that  which  He  Himself  has  made. 

The  Author  of  Nature  does  nothing  in  miracles  that  is  contrary  to  Nature, 
but  only  that  is  contrary  to  that  course  of  things  which  is  familiar  to  us. 

It  would  have  been  a  miracle  more  incredible  than  all  miracles,  if  the 
World  had  believed  in  Christ  without  miracles. 

Man  is  a  greater  miracle  than  any  miracle  which  is  done  by  means 
of  man. 


If  God  were  not  unchangeable,  no  changeable  nature  could  subsist. 

Time  began  with  Creation,  and  both  began  from  God.  Nothing  in 
time  is  new  to  God,  Who,  existing  from  Eternity,  disposes  all  things  in 
their  proper  season. 

Nothing  can  take  place  in  this  world,  without  the  act  or  permission 
of  God. 


Sin  is  not  nature,  but  a  corruption  of  nature. 


54  Miscellanies. 

When  thou  readest  Scripture,  behold  God  speaking  to  thee  ;  and  wheD 
thou  prayest,  remember  that  thou  art  speaking  to  God. 

Scripture  is  one  Book  ;  Nature  is  another ;  the  latter  reveals  the 
Power  of  God,  the  former,  His  Will. 

The  New  Testament  is  concealed  in  the  Old ;  the  Old  Testament  is 
revealed  in  the  New. 

The  shadow  was  in  the  Law ;  the  image  in  the  Gospel ;  the  Truth  is 
in  heaven. 


The  Prophets  lived  a  Cluistward  life. 

The  Lives  of  the  Hebrew  Patriarchs  were  a  Prophecy. 

The  fact,  that  the  Old  Testament  is  not  understood  by  the  Jews, 
does  not  invalidate  its  authority;  nay,  it  enhances  it;  because  the 
blindness  of  the  Jews  is  clearly  foretold  in  it. 

The  Sun  is  the  cause  of  thy  seeing  the  Sun  ;  God  is  the  cause  of  thy 
seeing  Him. 

God,  who  gave  the  Law,  gave  also  Grace ;  He  sent  the  Law  by  His 
Servant  Moses  ;  He  Himself  came  down  from  heaven  with  Grace. 


The  Law  was  given,  in  order  that  Grace  might  be  desired  ;  Grace  is 
given,  that  the  Law  may  be  fulfilled. 

All  things  in  Scripture  are  either  about  Christ,  or  for  Christ. 

Whatsoever  doubts  thou  mayest  have  on  hearing  a  passage  of  Scrip- 
ture, do  not  depart  from  Christ,  but  consider  thy  doubt  in  reference  to 
Him  ;  and  if  He  is  revealed  to  thee  in  that  passage,  thou  mayest  under- 
stand that  thou  hast  understood  it  aright. 

Christ  is  the  end  of  the  Law. 


Night  does  not  put  out  the  stars  in  the  heavens  ;  the  Unbelief  of  the 
World  does  not  put  out  the  light  of  the  mind,  which  clings  to  the  heaven 
of  Scripture. 

The  things  in  God's  Word,  which  seem  to  be  contradictions,  will  be 
reconciled  by  God,  for  the  comfort  of  the  faithful ;  they  are  like  knots  in 
an  oak,  which  strengthen  it ;  they  are  like  knots  in  a  net,  which  bind  it 
together. 

He  that  hath  God's  Word,  can  hear  His  Silence. 

Scripture  grows  with  Christ's  little  ones.  In  the  field  of  Scripture,  the 
obscure  things  exercise  us,  the  clear  things  nourish  us. 

My  God,  may  Thy  Holy  Scriptures  be  ever  my  pure  delight !  may  I 
neither  be  deceived  in  them,  nor  deceive  by  them. 

Scripture  defies  the  proud  by  its  height ;  it  awes  the  diligent  by  its 
depth  ;  it  feeds  the  strong  by  its  truth,  and  it  nourishes  the  weak  by  its 
condescension. 


Moral  and  Spirittial  Afaxims. 


55 


We  must  cleave  to  the  Scriptures  which  are  clear,  in  order  that  by  them 
we  may  understand  the  things  which  are  dark. 

God  has  scattered  the  Jews  everywhere,  in  order  that  the  Scripture 
may  have  them  as  its  witnesses  in  all  nations. 

The  Jews  carry  the  Old  Testament  in  their  hands,  but  do  not  under- 
stand it  in  their  hearts  ;  they  are,  as  it  were,  the  servants,  secretaries, 
and  porters  of  the  Christians,  who  prove  the  Gospel  from  it. 

That  man  is  a  fool,  who,  when  he  sees  so  many  prophecies  in  Scripture 
that  have  been  fulfilled  already,  does  not  believe  those  other  few  prophecies 
in  Scripture,  which  remain  still  to  be  fulfilled. 

The  Fathers  were  saved  by  Jesus  Who  was  to  come ;  we  are  saved  by 
Him  Who  has  come.    The  times  are  changed ;  but  not  the  Faith. 

The  soul  is  a  spouse  of  Christ,  when  joined  to  Him  by  the  bond  of  faith. 

Dost  thou  wish  to  become  a  divine  ?  Keep  the  commandments. 
Obedience  is  the  ladder  of  Contemplation. 


The  pure  milk  of  God's  Word  is  not  to  be  adulterated  with  the  chalk  of 
human  opinions. 

In  order  to  have  faith,  thou  must  work  ;  faith  is  the  reward  of  work. 


Faith  opens  the  door  to  the  understanding  ;  but  Unbelief  closes  the  eyes 
of  the  soul.  As  food  is  poison  to  an  unhealthy  palate,  so  the  Word  of 
God  is  distasteful  to  sinners.  The  honey  of  God's  Word  is  sweet  to  him 
who  has  the  palate  of  faith. 

The  Catholic  Faith  has  grown  in  strength  and  clearness  from  the  oppo- 
sitions of  heretics.  Honey, — taken  from  the  carcase  of  the  slain  lion, — 
feeds  Faith  (cp.  Judges  xiv.  8,  9,  18). 

How  can  any  one  have  Christ  as  his  Head,  who  divides  the  Church 
which  is  His  body  ?  How  great  is  the  guilt  of  Schism,  which  (in  the 
words  of  S.  Cyprian  and  S.  Ignatius)  even  the  blood  of  martyrdom  cannot 
wipe  away  ! 

0  Heresy,  0  Schism,  thou  cruel  harlot,  blush  to  be  judged  by  the  true 
Solomon :  the  real  mother  would  not  allow  her  child  to  be  divided 
(1  Kings  iii.  16 — 28)  ;  thou  dividest  thy  Lord  Himself!  (S.  Augustine.) 

Schismatics  assign  priestly  acts  to  laymen.  Their  bond  of  Unity  is 
schism.  (Tertullian.)  That  which  is  found  to  have  been  the  same  among 
many  (primitive  Christians)  is  not  an  error  but  a  truth  ;  that  which  is 
more  primitive  is  more  true ;  that  is  most  primitive  which  is  from  the 
beginning.  (Tertull.). 

Time  which  is  spent  on  prayer  is  more  precious  than  gold:  an  hour 
devoted  to  God  lasts  for  a  thousand  years.  Pray,  with  thy  mouth,  with 
thy  heart,  and  with  thy  life. 


56 


Miscellanies. 


If  thou  desirest  to  pray  in  a  temple,  pray  in  thyself;  be  a  temple  of  God. 

In  the  storms  of  life,  moor  thyself,  by  the  anchor  of  faith,  to  the  shore 
of  prayer. 

God  hears  the  heart.  Watch  with  thy  heart ;  shut  out  the  noise  of 
the  world,  in  order  that  the  gate  of  heaven  may  be  opened  to  thee  in 
prayer. 

Place  thyself  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  adore  Him  in  silence.  Behold 
Him  present,  with  thy  whole  mind. 

Even  sadness  for  not  praying  well,  is  an  act  of  prayer. 

God  does  not  forbid  us  to  do  well  before  men,  either  in  prayer  or  alms- 
giving, but  to  do  these  things  in  order  to  be  seen  of  men. 

When  thou  prayest  before  men,  enter  into  the  closet  of  thy  heart ; 
when  thou  doest  alms  before  men,  let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy 
right  hand  doeth.  Whatever  thou  doest  before  men,  do  it  not  unto  men, 
but  unto  God.  Let  the  crowd  of  the  World  be  to  thee  a  solitude  with  God. 

Be  seen  to  do  good,  but  do  not  do  good  to  be  seen. 

The  intention  of  the  heart  is  its  cry  to  God ;  our  thoughts  are  heard  in 
heaven.    If  thou  criest  to  God,  cry  where  God  hears  thee,  within  thyself. 

Christians  so  converse  with  one  another,  as  men  who  know  that  God  is 
listening  to  them.   

He  that  asserts  Christ  to  be  only  God,  denies  the  remedy  by  which  he 
has  been  healed ;  he  who  asserts  Christ  to  be  only  Man,  denies  the  power 
by  which  he  has  been  created. 

In  our  Lord's  sentence  (John  x.  30),  "  I  and  the  Father  are  one  "  (unum, 
one  substance),  Christ  overthrew  Arianism  by  the  word  "  one  "  {unum) ;  by 
the  words  "  we  are  "  He  overthrew  Sabellianism. 

In  breathing  on  His  disciples  and  giving  them  the  Holy  Ghost  thereby 
(John  xx.  22),  He  showed  His  two  Natures  ;  as  Man  He  breathed  ;  as  God 
He  gave  God  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Cross  of  Christ  has  passed  from  Calvary,  the  place  of  execution,  to 
the  foreheads  and  diadems  of  Kings  ;  if  so  great  is  the  honour  of  Christ's 
Suffering,  how  great  will  be  the  splendour  of  His  Glory  ! 

Christ  underwent  for  us  an  unmerited  death,  in  order  that  we  by  His 
death  might  have  an  unmerited  life. 

In  the  first  Adam,  it  was  shown  what  was  the  force  of  free  will  to 
procure  for  us  death ;  in  the  second  Adam  it  was  shown  what  was  the 
power  of  Grace,  to  procure  for  us  life. 

The  whole  human  race  is,  as  it  were,  two  men,  Adam  and  Christ, 
Death  and  Life. 

Whatever  is  less  tliau  God,  is  not  God. 


God  became  Man  ;  what  will  Man  become,  for  whom  God  became  Man? 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  57 

Let  man  blush  to  be  proud,  for  whom  God  stooped  to  be  humble. 

Man  fell  by  pride  ;  God  used  humility  to  exalt  us  to  heaven. 

A  proud  man  is  a  great  misery ;  what  a  mercy  is  there  in  God  be- 
coming humble  for  man's  sake  ! 

Christ  prays  for  us,  as  our  Priest ;  He  prays  in  us,  as  our  H  ead  ;  He 
hears  our  prayers,  as  our  God. 

No  one  can  lift  anything  to  the  place  where  he  himself  is,  unless  he 
stoops  to  the  place  where  it  is.    Therefore  God  became  Man. 

Christ  sought  thee,  when  a  sinner,  to  redeem  thee;  now  that  He  has 
found  thee  and  redeemed  thee,  will  He  forsake  thee  ? 


How  rich  will  Christ  make  thee  by  His  wealth,  since  He  has  made  thee 
so  rich  by  His  poverty  ? 

The  malefactor  believed  in  Christ,  hanging  on  the  Cross,  and  was 
carried  by  Him  to  Paradise ;  what  will  become  of  those  who  despise  Christ 
reigning  in  heaven  ? 

God  is  ever  working — and  at  rest. 

God  uses  bad  things  well,  but  the  Devil  uses  good  things  ill;  the 
Devil  concocts  poison  from  the  honey  of  God. 

God  marks  the  actions  which  the  World  slights  ;  God  ignores  the 
actions  which  the  World  applauds.  Prize  thou  nothing  apart  from  God. 

If  thou  desirest  peace,  desire  to  please  God. 

Let  Christ  be  fixed  in  thy  heart,  Who  was  fixed  for  thee  on  the  Cross. 

My  Love  has  been  crucified.    (S.  Ignat.) 

Consider  the  three  days  of  Christ,  crucified,  dead,  buried,  and  rising 
again;  and  represent  those  three  days  in  thy  own  life. 

Two  loves  built  two  Cities  ;  love  of  self  built  the  earthly  city,  love  of 
God  the  heavenly. 

He  alone  knows  how  to  love  himself  aright,  who  loves  God.  Love  is 
the  chariot  which  conveys  us  to  our  heavenly  home.  Let  a  man  ask 
himself  what  he  loves,  and  he  will  soon  find  out  to  what  City  he  belongs, 
— the  City  of  this  World,  or  the  City  of  God. 

Our  loves  make  our  lives. 


That  man  whom  God  pleases,  pleases  God.  They  who  please  themselves 
displease  Him. 

Holy  men  treat  holy  things  holily. 

Live,  but  live  to  God  ;  living  to  the  world  is  a  work  of  death  ;  living 
to  God  is  a  living  life. 


58  Miscellanies. 

This  is  true  love, — to  love  God  for  God's  sake. 

He  alone  loves  himself,  who  compares  nothing  to  God. 

Why  are  some  men  more  holy  than  others  ?  By  having  God  more 
fully  dwelling  in  them. 

Good  men  fear  sin  from  love  of  virtue  ;  had  men  avoid  sin  from  fear  of 
punishment. 

If  we  will  to  live  well,  let  us  love  more  what  God  promises,  than 
what  is  promised  by  the  World;  and  let  us  fear  more  what  God  threatens, 
than  what  is  threatened  by  the  World. 

To  know  God  is  life  ;  not  to  know  Him  is  death  ;  to  serve  God  is  to 
reign  as  a  King  ;  not  to  serve  Him  is  to  be  the  Devil's  slave. 

What  is  the  use  of  knowing  all  the  causes  of  things,  if  thou  shunnest 
what  thou  oughtest  to  do,  or  doest  what  thou  oughtest  to  shun? 

We  do  not  test  the  faith  by  men,  hut  we  test  men  by  the  faith. 

Thou,  0  King,  threatenest  me  with  a  prison  for  disobeying  thee,  but 
God  threatens  me  with  hell  for  not  obeying  Him. 

God  trains  and  crowns  good  men  by  means  of  bad  men. 

No  works  are  good,  which  are  not  done  in  faith  and  love.  Faith  is 
the  root ;  Hope  the  flower ;  Love  the  fruit. 

We  cannot  have  the  life  of  the  blessed,  unless  we  love  it. 

God  is  the  End  of  our  desires.  He  will  hereafter  be  seen  without  end, 
He  will  be  loved  without  any  cloying  of  our  love.  He  will  be  praised 
without  weariness.    This  will  be  the  End  which  has  no  End. 


Learning  without  Love  puffs  up.    Love  without  Learning  leads  astray. 

Forgetfulness  of  God  is  the  sleep  of  the  soul. 

He  who  desires  God,  desires  joy ;  do  thou  desire  joy,  not  in  thyself 
but  in  Him.  Our  heart  is  right  with  Him,  when  we  desire  Him  for  His 
own  sake. 


We  shall  see  God  more  clearly,  in  proportion  as  we  are  more  like  Him. 

O  God,  my  power  comes  from  Thy  Command.  Give  me  power  to  do 
what  Thou  commandest,  and  then  command  Thou  what  Thou  wiliest.  Thou 
by  commanding  a  thing  makest  it  good  for  me  to  do. 

The  Word  of  God  commanding  becomes  the  power  of  Man  obeying. 

Let  the  life,  0  Christ,  which  Thou  livedst,  live  in  my  heart.  The  life 
which  Thou  hast  given  me,  hide  with  Thyself  in  God. 

Every  command  of  God  is  easy  to  him  who  loves  God ;  as  the  wings  of 
a  bird  do  not  weigh  it  down  to  earth,  but  waft  it  upward  to  the  sky. 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  59 

Grace  goes  before  us,  in  order  that  we  may  will ;  and  Grace  follows  us, 
that  we  may  not  will  in  vain. 

When  God  rewards  thy  good  deeds,  He  crowns  His  own  gifts.  "What- 
ever thou  doest  well,  is  an  argument  how  much  thou  owest  to  Him ;  thou 
doest  nothing  well  but  what  He  enables  thee  to  do.  Man's  power  is 
nothing,  without  God's  grace ;  He  makes  us  to  do  whatever  we  do 
aright. 

Prayer  itself  is  a  gift  of  Grace ;  Grace  is  called  Grace,  because  it  is 
given  gratis.  What  am  I  without  Thee,  0  God,  but  a  leader  of  myself 
to  a  precipice  ? 


God's  Grace  is  man's  Teacher.  Reason  needs  Grace ;  but  Grace  has  use 
of  Reason.   

God  wills  our  will  to  be  free ;  but  if  we  desire  to  maintain  man's  free 
will,  let  us  not  impugn  God's  grace,  by  means  of  which  man's  Will  uses 
its  freedom  aright. 


If  there  is  no  such  thing  as  God's  grace,  how  can  He  save  the  World  ? 
but  if  there  is  no  such  a  thing  as  Man's  free  will,  how  can  He  judge  the 
World  ? 


Man  does  not  cause  past  things  to  be  done,  by  remembering  them  ; 
and  God  does  not  cause  future  things  to  be  done,  by  foreseeing  them  ; 
God  foresees  all  future  things,  but  forces  nothing. 

Good  men  are  sure  of  the  reward  of  perseverance  ;  but  they  are  not  sure 
that  they  themselves  will  persevere. 

In  the  precious  stones  of  the  breastplate  of  the  Hebrew  High  Priest 
God  placed  the  TJrim  and  Thummim  (i.  e.  Lights  and  Perfections) ;  so  He 
has  put  Grace  into  Scriptures  and  Sacraments,  in  order  that  we  may  be 
enlightened  and  perfected  thereby. 

Also  He  has  infused  grace  into  holy  souls,  that  they  may  become 
precious  stones,  and  shine  for  ever  in  the  heavenly  Jerusalem. 

Adam  fell  asleep  in  Paradise,  and  God  made  Eve  his  spouse  out  of  his 
opened  side  as  he  slept.  Christ,  the  Second  Adam,  fell  asleep  in  death  on 
the  Cross  ;  and  out  of  His  pierced  side  came  forth  Blood  and  Water,  the 
Sacramental  Streams,  to  which  the  Church,  His  Eve  and  Bride,  owes  her 
life ;  and  those  Sacramental  Streams,  which  derive  their  virtue  from 
His  Sacrifice,  are  applied  to  faithful  souls,  for  their  eternal  life. 


Sacraments  do  not  save  the  faithless  ;  but  God  saves  the  faithful  by 
means  of  Sacraments. 

If  Christ  is  with  us,  Cobwebs  are  Walls  ;  if  Christ  is  against  us,  Walls 
are  Cobwebs. 

Man's  midnight  is  God's  noon. 

Let  thy  face,  like  that  of  Moses,  shine  to  others,  by  communing  with 
God  ;  but  do  not  make  it  a  looking-glass  for  thyself. 


6o 


Miscellanies. 


Fear  thou  to  be  praised  now  by  tbe  popular  breath  of  man,  lest  thou 
be  cast  down  hereafter  by  the  unerring  judgment  of  God. 

When  thou  art  praised  by  men,  despise  thyself.  Let  Him  be  praised  Who 
works  thy  works  in  thee,  and  by  thee.  Render  to  God  the  praise,  lest  thou 
be  condemned  by  Him.  And  do  not  rejoice  because  thou  art  praised,  but 
rejoice  for  the  sake  of  God's  glory,  and  thy  neighbour's  good. 

Do  not  boast  of  thine  own  deeds.  God  is  crowning  His  own  grace. 
If  thou  countest  th}r  merits,  what  are  they  but  His  gifts  ? 

It  is  great  glory,  to  displease  the  bad. 

The  shepherd,  who  praises  the  wolf,  hates  the  sheep. 

The  Priest,  who  praises  heretics  and  schismatics,  is  a  hireling. 

He,  who  least  hunts  for  the  honours  of  this  world,  will  receive  the 
greatest  glory  from  God. 


Woe  to  the  man  whose  charioteer  is  Pride. 

If  thou  art  a  Phaeton,  thou  wilt  surely  have  an  Eridanus. 

God's  Vengeance  dogs  the  proud. 

The  forfeiture  of  grace  is  a  proof  of  pride. 

The  aping  of  humility  is  the  apex  of  pride. 

Grace,  poured  down  from  God,  is  received  by  the  concave  of  humility ; 
but  it  is  thrown  off  by  the  convex  of  pride. 

Is  thy  knowledge  nothing,  except  others  know  thee  to  know  it  ? 

"  On  travaille  trop  pour  la  gazette." 

St.  Paul  was  greater  than  others,  because  he  wished  all  to  be  equal 
to  himself. 


The  Devil  fell  by  pride ;  Christ  was  exalted  by  Humility  ;  we  cannot 
ascend  without  it.    Pride  hates  companionship,  and  wishes  to  be  eminent 

alone.   

In  order  to  appear  good,  be  good. 


Men  praise  thee,  and  know  nothing. 

God  knows  all  things,  and  holds  His  peace. 


When  thou  doest  good,  beware  of  pride ;  he  who  does  good,  and  is 
proud  of  it,  falls  by  his  own  goodness. 

What  is  the  use  of  giving  money  to  the  poor,  if  thou  art  made  more 
proud  by  giving,  than  thou  wast  by  possessing? 

What  use  is  it,  to  have  the  body  emaciated  by  abstinence,  if  the  mind 
is  inflated  by  pride  ?  What  use  is  it,  not  to  drink  wine,  and  to  be  in- 
toxicated by  hatred  ? 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  61 

"What  use  is  it  to  be  pallid  with  fasting,  and  to  be  livid  with  envy  P 
Humble  Marriage  is  holier  than  proud  Virginity. 


It  is  a  great  happiness,  not  to  be  overcome  by  happiness. 

This  be  thy  brazen  wall, 
To  have  a  good  conscience,  and  to  grow  pale  through  no  crime. 

The  praise  of  him  who  collauds  thee,  cannot  heal  thy  bad  conscience  ; 
and  the  blame  of  him  who  censures  thee,  cannot  hurt  thy  good  one. 

No  pain,  how  great  pain  ! 


The  man  who  proudly  pleases  himself,  pleases  a  fool. 


What  is  more  miserable  than  a  miserable  sinner  not  commiserating 
himself? 

Let  us  not  talk  great  things,  but  live  them. 

It  is  better  to  hold  one's  peace,  and  to  be  real,  than  to  talk,  and  to  be  not 
real. 

Shun  pleasures  ;  pleasure  hurts  when  bought  by  pain. 
If  the  vessel  is  not  sweet,  whatever  thou  pourest  into  it  will  turn  sour. 


Thy  body  is  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  a  member  of  Christ,  and 
will  rise  from  the  grave  like  to  H  is  body,  if  it  be  hallowed  by  chastity. 

The  mortification  of  the  flesh  is  the  glorification  of  the  spirit. 

John  the  Baptist  (the  preacher  of  repentance)  is  ever  the  forerunner  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  is  always  preparing  the  way  for  Him. 


Do  not  buy  the  fleeting  pleasures  of  a  single  hour,  or  of  a  little  day, 
with  great  suffering  of  mind  and  body. 

How  canst  thou  mount  from  the  sty  to  the  sky  ?  (a  cceno  ad  ccelum 
Tertullian,)  from  earthly  lusts  to  heavenly  light? 

How  great  a  pleasure  is  it,  to  despise  pleasure !  it  is  virtuous  to  refrain 
from  even  lawful  joys. 


Mortify  thy  body,  crucify  the  rebel  flesh ;  and  a  beautiful  crown  for  thy 
head  will  be  given  thee  by  thy  future  Judge. 

The  love  of  earthly  things  is  the  birdlime  of  our  spiritual  wings. 

Think  of  the  Cross,  and  thou  wilt  deem  money  to  be  mire. 

Sweet  it  is,  to  be  without  vain  sweetnesses. 

I  suffer  pain  of  body  and  of  mind,  in  order  that  I  may  be  weaned  from 
worldly  delights.  But  what  can  I  do  ?  Nothing,  0  God,  unless  I  have 
Thy  grace.    Have  mercy  upon  me,  and  help  me  ! 


62 


Miscellanies. 


Let  Temperance  cleanse  the  body,  which  will  mount  above  the  stars, 
and  is  the  temple  in  which  Thou  dwellest,  0  God. 

Deem  it  the  worst  of  crimes,  to  prefer  life  to  honour,  and  for  life's  sake 
to  lose  the  reasons  for  living. 

If  thou  confessest  Christ  before  men,  He  will  confess  thee  before  the 
Angels ;  but  if  thou  deniest  Him,  thou  wilt  be  denied  by  Him.  Art  thou 
ashamed  of  Christ?    That  Christ  may  be  ashamed  of  thee  ! 

He  who  loves  to  be  praised  by  men,  when  he  is  blamed  by  Christ,  will 
not  be  defended  by  men,  when  he  is  judged  by  Christ. 

If  thou  art  faithful,  then,  when  thou  art  near  the  sword,  thou  art  near 
to  God ;  when  thou  art  in  the  midst  of  wild  beasts,  thou  art  in  the  hand 
of  God. 


Though  thy  feet  be  in  the  stocks,  thy  heart  is  above  the  stars. 

The  cry  of  the  Martyrs  was,  0  Lord,  deliver  me  from  the  fear  of  the  enemy. 

Grapes  are  trodden  in  the  winepress,  and  wine  flows  from  them  ;  thou 
art  like  the  bush  in  the  wilderness,  burning  but  not  consumed.  The 
Church  of  God,  the  spouse  of  Christ,  is  a  lily  among  thorns  (Song  of 
Solomon  ii.  2).  Such  is  every  faithful  soul,  that  has  been  espoused  to 
Christ  in  Baptism.  I  groan  here  in  the  body,  but  I  rejoice  in  hope 
of  hereafter.  Thou  groanest  in  the  earthly  threshing-floor,  but  thou  wilt 
rejoice  in  the  heavenly  garner. 

From  the  bruised  olive  streams  the  liquid  oil. 

The  grass  is  mown,  and  it  becomes  sweet  hay.    Earth  is  our  inn, 

heaven  is  our  home. 

Let  the  chaff  fear  the  fire ;  but  what  can  the  fire  do  to  the  gold  ?  The 
earthen  vessel  is  put  into  the  furnace,  not  to  be  broken,  but  to  be  baked. 
Afflictions  are  the  flowers,  of  which  the  heavenly  crown  is  woven.  The 
way  from  earth  to  the  stars  is  not  smooth. 

To  do  well  and  to  suffer  ill,  is  royal,  nay,  divine. 

He  who  does  not  suffer  ill  well,  cannot  come  to  great  glory. 

The  Sun  has  no  spectators,  but  when  it  is  eclipsed. 

The  good  grain  remains  on  the  threshing-floor,  the  chaff  is  swept  awa}' 
by  the  wind.  Tribulation  proves  what  a  man's  faith  is.  By  persecution 
the  hireling  is  distinguished  from  the  good  shepherd. 

The  bitter  water  (of  affliction)  is  sweetened  by  casting  in  the  wood  (of 
Christ's  Cross).    Cp.  Exod.  xv.  25. 

If  thou  art  afraid  of  being  shipwrecked,  lay  hold  of  the  wood  of  the  Cross. 

Thou  wilt  be  free,  if  thou  art  a  servant ;  free  from  sin,  by  serving 
Christ.  The  service  of  the  Devil  is  the  worst  slavery  ;  the  service  of  Christ 
is  the  only  freedom. 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  63 

Our  will  is  more  free,  in  proportion  as  it  is  more  healtby ;  and  our  will 
is  more  healthy,  in  proportion  as  it  is  more  subject  to  the  will  of  God. 

Our  free  will  is  a  gift  of  God's  grace. 

How  can  a  man's  will  be  said  to  be  free,  if  it  is  the  slave  of  lusts,  con- 
quering and  constraining  it? 

The  power  of  hurting  themselves  and  others,  is  by  some  called  freedom. 

Commit  thyself  wholly  to  God,  and  endure  all  things ;  He  will  not 
try  thee  beyond  thy  power  to  endure. 

Christ  has  taught  thee,  what  not  to  fear,  and  what  to  hope  for.  Thou 
fearedst  death  ;  He  has  died.  Thou  didst  not  hope  to  rise  again  ;  He  rose 
from  the  dead.  He  died  and  rose  again  for  thee  in  that  human  nature 
which  He  took  of  thee. 


That  man  swims  smoothly,  whose  chin  is  held  up  by  the  hand  of  God. 
The  waves  cannot  rage  beyond  the  shore. 


When  the  shore  is  reached  at  last, 
Who  will  count  the  billows  past? 

We  are  appointed  to  suffer  adversities,  lest  we,  who  are  travellers  to  our 
heavenly  country,  should  love  our  inn  as  our  home. 

M17  /3Ae7re  ra  1'Sia,  aXXo  to.  aihia. 
(This  cannot  be  adequately  rendered  into  English.) 

Let  not  sleep  close  thine  eyelids,  before  thou  hast  thrice  gone  over  in 
thy  mind  the  works  of  the  past  day.  Where  did  I  go  astray  ?  What 
did  I  do  ?    What  have  I  left  undone  ? 

Good  things  are  hard  ;  dogged  labour  conquers  all  things  ;  nothing  is 
given  to  mortals  without  it.   The  gods  sell  to  us  all  blessings  for  labour. 

All  our  life  is  a  trial. 

If  thou  shirkest  care,  thou  shrinkest  from  virtue. 


In  proportion  as  thou  carest  more  lor  the  common  weal  than  for  thine 
own,  so  much  more,  be  sure,  hast  thou  advanced  in  virtue. 

To  those  great  men  of  old,  their  private  fortune  was  scanty  ;  the  common 
weal  was  large. 

I  had  rather  have  a  drop  of  wisdom  than  a  sea  of  wealth  (S.  Greg.  Naz.). 

More  pains,  More  gains. 

If  duty  calls  thee,  hasten  to  obey  the  call,  and  the  less  thou  wishest  to 
go,  the  more  do  thou  resolve  to  go. 

The  brightest  lightnings  are  from  the  blackest  clouds. 

The  gold  shines  more  brightly  from  the  most  scorching  fire. 


64  Miscellanies. 

The  disease  that  tortures  thy  limbs,  often  brings  health  to  thy  soul. 
God  heals  and  revives  thee  by  smiting  thee. 


Plunge  it  in  the  deep,  and  it  comes  out  more  fair. 

Never  doubt  about  doing,  what  thou  knowest  thou  ougbtest  to  do  ; 
and  never  do  that,  which  thou  doubtest  whether  it  ought  to  be 
done. 


What  are  plainly  sins,  ought  not  to  be  done,  on  any  plea  of  a  good 
motive  or  end. 


Him,  only  him,  the  hand  of  God  defends 
Whose  means  are  pure  and  spotless  as  his  ends. 

Be  ambitious  to  be  quiet ;  and  to  do  thine  own  business. 

It  is  not  enough,  to  shun  evil,  unless  thou  doest  what  is  good ; 
it  is  not  enough  to  hurt  nobody,  unless  thou  triest  to  help  as  many  as 
thou  canst. 


In  order  that  thou  mayest  do  thy  duty,  be  content  with  doing  it. 

Remember  needless  things  to  flee, 
That  needful  may  be  done  by  thee. 

Do  not  intrude  into  another  man's  diocese. 


The  man  who  hunts  two  hares,  catches  neither. 


No  one  ought  to  be  so  leisurely,  as  to  neglect  the  good  of  others  ;  nor  to 
be  so  busy,  as  to  forego  communion  with  God. 

The  love  of  Truth  longs  for  holy  leisure ;  the  necessity  of  Love  under- 
takes reasonable  duty. 

If  thou  troublest  thyself  (by  remorse),  thou  wilt  not  be  troubled  by  God. 

Confusion  of  self  by  repentance  in  this  life  is  salutary ;  confound  thyself 
willingly  now,  lest  God  confound  thee  by  eternal  pain,  and  so  thou  be 
destroyed  by  everlasting  confusion. 

Consider  the  times  ;  and  watch  for  His  coming  Who  is  beyond  all  time. 

Redeem  for  thyself  the  opportunity ;  "  turning  the  dust  of  servile 
opportunity  to  gold." 

Who  are  the  enemies  of  the  Church  ?  Heathens,  Mohammedans,  Jews. 
Who  are  her  greater  enemies  ?  Bad  Christians.  Who  are  her  greatest 
enemies  ?    Bad  Priests. 


Thou  who  art  a  Priest  of  Christ,  listen  to  the  voice  of  thy  Master.  A 
good  Shepherd  ought  not  to  seek  for  his  own  things,  but  to  spend  them 
lor  Him. 


Let  thy  heart  be  made  a  temple  of  God,  by  reading,  by  prayer,  and 
meditation. 


Moi'al  and  Spiritual  Maxims. 


65 


In  order  that  thou  mayest  be  a  reservoir  (of  the  living  water  of  divine 
truth),  thou  must  first  learn  to  be  a  channel :  do  not  try  to  pour  it  out 
(in  sermons),  before  thou  thyself  art  well  filled. 

Prajsis  ut  prosis. 

Thy  hand  be  on  the  helm,  thine  eye  be  on  the  stars. 

Not  to  go  forward,  is  to  go  backward. 


Oversee,  and  tend,  the  flock  of  God  ;  gather  the  sheep,  guide  them,  and 
goad  them  on  by  thy  pastoral  crook,  and  thou  wilt  receive  a  crown  from 
the  Chief  Shepherd. 


The  teacher's  error  is  the  people's  trial,  and  so  much  the  greater  trial,  the 
greater  the  teacher  is. 


He  will  never  learn,  who  is  ashamed  to  be  taught ;  and  he  will  never 
teach,  who  is  angry  with  those  whom  he  teaches. 


I  rejoice  to  hear  that  preacher's  voice,  who  does  not  seek  to  elicit  the 
hearers'  praise,  but  their  tears.  The  true  preacher  never  tries  to  please 
by  words,  but  by  things  ;  he  is  not  the  slave  of  words,  but  words  serve 
him.  Pray  first,  and  then  preach.  It  is  safer  for  thee  to  listen  to  others 
than  to  preach  thyself.  And  unless  thou  art  on  fire  in  preaching,  thou 
wilt  never  kindle  others. 


Pray  and  plough  :  break  up  the  fallow  ground. 


It  is  a  disgrace  for  a  priest  to  aim  to  be  rich.  Read  often  the  Holy 
Scripture,  nay,  never  let  it  out  of  thy  hands ;  learn  there  what  to  teach  ; 
let  not  thy  life  confute  thy  teaching,  lest  thy  hearers  say  to  thee,  Why  dost 
thou  not  practise  what  thou  preachest?  Let  the  tears  of  thy  hearers  be 
thy  praise.  I  would  not  have  thee  a  rhetorical  declaimer,  but  a  teacher 
well  skilled  in  the  mysteries  and  sacraments  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  the  part 
of  unlearned  preachers  to  pour  out  a  torrent  of  words  glibly,  and  to  court 
the  popular  applause  of  the  ignorant  by  volubility  of  utterance.  Let  not 
the  clownish  and  simple  brother  count  himself  holy,  because  he  is  ignorant ; 
nor  let  the  learned  and  eloquent  preacher  measure  holiness  by  the  gifts  of 
the  tongue.  Let  us  meditate  on  the  Cross  of  Christ,  and  we  shall  count 
money  as  mire.  Do  not  have  itching  ears  ;  speak  evil  of  no  man,  and  listen 
to  no  man  speaking  evil  of  others.  No  one  repeats  slanders  in  an 
unwilling  ear.  The  arrow  does  not  stick  in  a  stone.  Let  the  slanderer 
learn  to  abstain  from  slandering  by  seeing  thee  distressed  by  hearing  it. 
(S.  Jerome.) 


The  hearer  of  Scripture  ought  to  be  like  the  clean  animals  of  the 
Levitical  law;  he  ought  to  chew  the  cud  by  ruminating  upon  what  he 
hears,  and  he  ought  to  divide  the  hoof  by  walking  steadily  in  it. 

It  is  better  to  doubt  concerning  what  is  obscure,  than  to  wrangle 
concerning  what  is  uncertain. 


In  necessary  things  let  there  be  Unity ;  in  doubtful  things,  Liberty  ; 
in  all  things,  Charity. 

VOL.  III.  *' 


66 


Miscellanies. 


In  the  one  Faith,  there  is  no  harm  in  a  variety  of  rites  and  ceremonies  ; 
rather,  a  diversity  of  rites  and  ceremonies  brings  out  in  bolder  relief  the 
unity  of  the  one  Faith. 

We  alarm,  because  we  fear  ;  knowing  the  terror  of  the  Lord,  we  per- 
suade men  (2  Cor.  v.  11). 


Let  not  those,  who  are  not  priests,  however  eminent  they  may  be  in 
eloquence  and  ability,  intrude  into  priestly  acts.  And  let  not  those  who 
are  priests,  be  despised  by  their  flocks,  although  they  may  not  be  distin- 
guished by  those  gifts.  What  is  the  use  of  a  golden  key,  if  it  cannot  open 
a  door  ?  and  what  is  the  harm  of  a  wooden  one,  if  it  can  open  it  ? 

Our  patience  is  tried  by  troubles.  That  man  conquers,  who  is  patient ; 
he  who  is  impatient  is  conquered. 

It  is  the  height  of  virtue  to  bear  with  the  malicious  tempers  of  others  ; 
and  with  a  peace-making  mind  to  love  the  enemies  of  peace. 

No  one  has  the  love  of  God  who  does  not  love  the  Unity  of  His  Church. 
Sacraments  may  exist  in  schism,  but  they  do  not  profit  except  in  Unity. 

Spiritual  gifts  profit  us  when  joined  with  the  grace  of  love.  But  they 
are  of  no  avail  without  it. 


He  who  errs,  and  humbly  laments  his  error,  is  a  better  man  than  he 
who  does  well,  and  vain-gloriously  boasts  of  what  he  has  done. 

He  who  binds  a  man  in  a  phrenzy,  and  he  who  arouses  one  in  a  lethargy, 
is  hated  by  both,  and  loves  both. 

Blessed  is  he  who  loves  his  friend  in  God,  and  loves  his  enemy  for  God. 


To  be  angry  is  human,  but  to  cease  from  anger  is  Christian. 


It  is  more  laudable  to  receive  correction  with  meekness,  than  to  correct 
with  sharpness. 

S.  Athanasius  was  like  adamant  to  those  who  smote  him,  and  like  a 
magnet  to  those  who  differed  from  him.    (S.  Greg.  Nazianz.) 


Thou  wilt  do  more  good  by  admonishing  amiably,  than  by  menacing 
angrily. 


Be  true  in  Love  ;  Truth  is  the  best  Love.  True  love  is  not  without  its 
hire,  but  it  is  not  a  hireling.  Nothing  will  hurt  the  man  who  deals  gently 
with  his  enemy ;  if  thou  dealest  rightly  with  thy  foe,  he  will  become  thy 
friend. 


He  who  willingly  detracts  from  my  good  name,  is  adding  unwillingly  to 
my  future  reward,  if  I  treat  the  detractor  with  love,  and  pray  for  him  to 
God. 


Render  not  evil  for  evil ;  pray  for  those  who  slander  thee  :  Prayer  is 
a  strong  weapon  to  a  loving  soul. 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  67 

That  man  is  a  greater  hero  who  conquers  himself,  than  he  who  conquers 
the  strongest  city ;  he  is  a  king  who  rules  himself.  He  who  conquers 
anger,  conquers  his  greatest  enemy. 

There  will  come  a  time  (says  Hooker),  when  three  words  uttered  with 
charity  will  receive  a  far  more  blessed  reward  than  three  thousand  volumes 
written  with  disdainful  sharpness  of  wit. 

Be  sober,  as  the  athlete  of  God.  Stand  steadfast,  as  an  anvil  when 
struck. 


Do  not  love  vice  for  the  sake  of  men,  nor  hate  vicious  men  for  their 
vices  :  love  the  erring,  shun  tbeir  errors  ;  have  war  with  vices,  but  follow 
peace  with  all  men.  If  thou  West  thy  friend,  love  not  his  errors  ;  but 
because  thou  lovest  him,  try  to  deliver  him  from  them. 

It  is  better  to  love  a  man  with  severity,  than  to  be  careless  of  his  soul 
without  verity.    (S.  Aug.) 


No  one  can  be  truly  a  man's  friend,  who  is  not  a  friend  of  Truth. 


Not  everything  that  we  like,  is  lawful ;  not  everything  that  is  lawful, 
is  expedient. 


All  things  are  free,  through  Faith  ;  all  things  serve,  through  Love. 


Love  is  like  a  Mother ;  with  some  she  is  in  childbirth  ;  with  others 
she  is  weak  ;  to  others  she  stoops  ;  to  others  she  raises  herself ;  to  some 
she  is  strict,  to  others,  gentle  ;  a  servant  of  all,  an  enemy  to  none. 


It  is  better  that  offences  should  arise,  than  that  Truth  should  be  betrayed  ; 
we  must  never  give  offence,  though  others  may  take  it.  Good  things  are 
an  offence  to  no  one  but  to  an  evil  mind. 


Oneness  is  better  than  one. 


Out  of  the  world's  thorns  pluck  for  thyself  a  crown  of  roses;  the  thorny 
sprig  often  bears  an  unfading  rose. 

No  saint  in  this  world  is  without  tears  ;  nay,  the  more  saintly  he  is,  the 
more  he  weeps  for  sin. 


Oil  speeds  the  wheels  ;  vinegar  rusts  them. 

Evils  exercise  and  excite  the  good  ;  be  thou  good,  and  be  not  overcome 
of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good. 

It  is  not  the  death  that  makes  the  Martyr,  but  the  cause.  Death  makes 
the  chains  of  Martyrs  to  be  crowns. 

Why  does  my  enemy  exult  over  me  ?  My  heavenly  Father  makes  use 
of  him  as  a  scourge,  to  train  me  for  my  heavenly  home. 

Death  came  in  with  Adam  by  sinning,  righteousness  was  fulfilled  in 
Christ  by  dying.    Christ  died,  that  Death  might  die  by  His  dying. 

F  2 


68 


Miscellanies. 


Live  every  day  as  about  to  die,  if  thou  desirest  to  die  as  about  to  live 
for  eternity. 


Let  Truth  dwell  in  thy  mouth,  Love  in  thy  heart;  Chastity  and 
Purity  in  thy  lips,  thy  heart,  and  thy  body. 

We  cannot  resist  our  persecutors,  except  by  Love. 

The  hatred  of  thy  enemy  cannot  hurt  thee,  but  thou  hurtest  thyself 
by  hating  him.  Thou  art  hurt  more  by  thine  own  enmity  than  by  thy 
enemy.    Love  thine  enemy,  and  the  ill  he  does  thee  will  be  thy  good. 

He  who  forges  fraud  against  another,  forges  it  against  himself:  the 
crafty  man  is  caught  in  his  own  snare.  He  who  devises  evil  against 
another,  devises  it  against  himself.  He  who  has  sinned  against  another, 
has  first  sinned  against  himself. 


He  who  scatters  seed  for  the  good  of  the  Church,  gathers  a  harvest  for 
himself. 


A  certain  friend  is  discerned  in  an  uncertain  matter. 


Qui  suadet,  sua  det. 


He  gives  twice  who  gives  in  a  trice. 

Give  to  every  one  that  asketh  thee ;  but  do  not  give  everything 
he  asks. 


It  is  part  of  conferring  a  favour,  to  deny  it  graciously. 

Thou  committest  seed  to  the  earth,  and  gatherest  a  rich  harvest. 
Thou  committest  wealth  to  Christ,  and  dost  thou  think  it  will  die  ? 


Charity  grows  by  use,  and  becomes  rich  by  giving. 

To  neglect  gain  seasonably,  is  the  greatest  gain.  Gain  gotten  with  an 
evil  name  is  great  loss.  Thou  gettest  gain,  if  thou  spendest  in  piety 
to  God. 


Prayer  without  almsgiving  is  barren  and  unprofitable. 

The  miser  lacks  what  he  has,  as  well  as  what  he  has  not.  A  poor  man 
lacks  many  things,  but  a  miser  lacks  everything. 

ft  ^pij/xar'  itrriv,  co^eXei  ra  KTr/fiara. 
If  thou  usest  well  what  thou  hast,  then  thou  hast  what  thou  useit. 


Dost  thou  wish  to  be  a  wise  merchant?  Give  thy  time  to  God,  and 
thy  money  to  the  poor. 


When  thou  doest  well,  do  it  cheerfully ;  if  thou  doest  it  grudgingly,  it 
is  not  done  by  thee,  but  out  of  thee. 

No  one  does  well,  who  does  it  grudgingly,  although  that  which  he 
does  may  be  good. 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  69 

Use  hospitality  one  to  another  without  grudging ;  giving  willingly, 
glad  to  distribute,  ministering  to  necessities  of  saints.  He  that  hath  pity, 
let  him  do  it  with  cheerfulness.  God  loveth  a  cheerful  giver. 

Money,  heaped  up  by  a  man,  is  either  his  servant  or  his  tyrant. 


A  man  does  not  possess,  but  is  possessed,  who  desires  to  be  rich  to 
himself,  and  is  poor  to  God. 


You  cannot  rightly  call  him  happy  who  has  much  wealth  ;  but  he  is 
happy,  who  uses  well  what  God  has  given  him. 


Thou  art  not  rich  by  having  much,  but  by  wanting  little. 

Extend  thy  small  income  by  limiting  thy  desires. 

What  thou  givest  is  the  only  wealth  thou  wilt  never  lose.  Give  while 
thou  hast  time ;  he  thine  own  heir.  No  one  will  be  able  to  take  away 
from  thee  what  thou  hast  given  to  God. 

The  rich  believer  counts  his  wealth  as  sand. 


The  envious  man  grows  thin  by  seeing  the  fatness  of  others.  Envy  is 
a  worse  torment  than  any  that  was  invented  by  the  tyrants  of  Sicily. 
Anger  is  brief  madness  ;  rule  thy  temper,  which,  if  thou  dost  not  restrain 
it,  will  rule  thee. 


Give  not  way  to  evil,  but  march  more  bravely  against  it. 

Dare  to  despise  wealth ;  but  never  despise  the  poor. 

This  is  true  wealth — to  live  frugally  with  gladness. 

A  man  may  rival  the  wealth  of  Kings  by  a  contented  mind. 

In  olden  time  the  glory  of  giving,  was  thought  greater  than  that  of 
having  titles  and  coronets. 


No  one  is  hurt  but  by  himself.  No  bad  man  is  happy.  Bear  and 
forbear.  Be  gentle  in  manner,  but  energetic  in  work. 

Dare  to  be  wise.  Grave  in  act,  serious  in  word,  serene  in  mien,  calm  in 
attitude.  Do  not  to  others  what  thou  wouldest  not  done  to  thyself,  but  do 
to  them  what  thou  wouldest  done  to  thee. 


What  is  well  begun  is  half  done. 


If  thou  condemnest  others,  thou  wilt  be  condemned  ;  if  thou  forgivest 
others,  thou  wilt  be  forgiven.  Dost  thou  judge  God's  servant,  thy  own 
brother?  We  shall  all  stand  at  His  judgment-seat ;  and  if  thou  art  angry 
with  thy  brother,  how  wilt  thou  appease  thy  Father? 

Slander,  and  listening  to  slander, — both  will  incur  condemnation. 


He  is  a  perfect  man  who  neither  slips  with  his  tongue,  nor  drinks  in 
slanderous  words  with  a  thirsty  ear. 


~o  Miscellanies. 

Leave  off  slandering  me  with  thine  ears. 

(Words  on  S.  Augustine's  table.) 
Whoever  loves  to  backbite  an  absent  friend,  let  him  know  that  this 
table  is  no  place  for  him. 


Rejoice  with  him  that  rejoicetb  ;  we  are  members  one  of  another.  My 
nature  is  to  fraternize  with  others  in  their  love,  but  not  in  their  hate. 


Every  man  has  his  own  failings ;  but  we  do  not  see  the  wallet  behind 
our  own  backs. 


Do  not  envy  the  good  deeds  of  others,  but  rejoice  in  them.  Thou 
hatest  thyself,  if  thou  enviest  them;  thou  lovest  thyself,  if  thou  lovest 
them.  He  who  hates  another  hates  himself  by  his  hatred ;  but  he  who 
loves  another  does  good  to  himself.  Look  not  at  thine  own  things,  but 
at  the  things  of  others. 


Love  the  good  name  of  thy  enemy.  He  who  loves  another's  soul  loves 
his  own  ;  he  who  cares  not  for  another's  soul,  destroys  his  own. 


Dost  thou  desire  to  find  good  men  ?  be  a  good  man  thyself.  Trust 
others ;  trust  begets  trust.  In  order  that  thou  maj-est  not  be  despised, 
despise  no  man.    Every  hair  has  its  own  shadow. 

Take  good  heed  what  thou  sayest,  to  whom,  and  of  whom. 

He  who  buys  land,  buys  strife  ;  a  loving  home  is  the  best  house. 

When  you  want  another  to  keep  a  secret,  keep  it  yourself. 


Admonish  thy  fnend  privately,  praise  him  openly. 
Be  true  in  all  things  ;  Truth  is  ever  right. 
It  is  a  noble  conquest,  to  be  conquered  by  the  Truth. 


Talk  with  the  vulgar,  think  with  the  wise. 


If  you  wish  to  catch  him  who  runs,  run  fast. 

A  gilt  bridle  does  not  better  the  horse. 

Troubled  water  will  not  make  a  looking-glass. 

Better  to  limp  in  the  way  of  truth,  than  to  trip  along  out  of  the  way. 
Be  not  proud  outside  the  way  of  truth,  nor  lazy  in  it. 


Everything  has  two  handles  :  take  thou  hold  of  the  right. 


One  man  is  no  man. 


Goodness  is  not  in  greatness,  but  greatness  is  in  goodness. 
Tli ink  long  on  what  thou  must  decide  once. 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  7 1 

Let  good  tilings  be  done  well.  A  good  intention  makes  a  good  act,  pro- 
vided it  is  done  to  the  Glory  of  God,  and  according  to  His  Law. 

That  man  cannot  be  said  to  write,  whose  writings  no  one  reads. 


Small  cares  are  talkative,  great  cares  are  dumb.  Cowardly  dogs  bark 
loudly  ;  hollow  vessels  make  the  most  noise. 

Qui  nihil  audet,  nihil  gaudet. 

You  may  conquer  more  easily  by  counsel  than  by  passion. 

Sapiens  senescit,  non  segnescit. 
The  wise  man  grows  old,  ever  learning  something  new. 

Art  thou  better  and  milder,  as  thou  growest  older, 
As  wine  becomes  more  mellow  by  age  ? 

It  is  the  sweetest  of  all  lives  to  feel  daily  growing  better. 

Expenditure  of  time  is  the  most  costly  of  all ;  no  avarice  is  honourable 
but  that  of  time. 


Train  thyself  to  live  hereafter  with  Angels,  by  living  as  an  Angel  here. 


Follow  not  thine  own  spirit,  if  thou  desirest  to  have  the  Spirit  of  God. 


Does  Time  seem  long  to  thee  ?  it  is  short  to  God.  Submit  to  God,  and 
what  is  far  off  will  soon  come. 


Many  are  not  ashamed  of  sin,  wbo  are  ashamed  to  repent  of  it;  they 
are  not  ashamed  of  their  wounds,  but  of  their  bandages. 

Resist  the  beginning  of  evils ;  it  is  too  late  to  heal  them  when  they 
become  inveterate  by  delay. 

Do  not  oscillate  on  the  momentum  of  a  doubtful  hour ;  trust  God ; 
sufficient  to  the  day  is  its  own  care. 

Do  not  hang  aloft  swinging  in  the  air  in  anxiety;  have  faith  in  God, 
and  receive  with  love  whatever  He  appoints.  Do  not  repine  at  thy  lot  ; 
but  rejoice  in  everything,  and  give  God  thanks. 

That  is  not  to  be  called  a  bad  death,  which  has  been  preceded  by  a  good 
life ;  he  cannot  die  ill,  who  lives  well. 


Qualis  vita, 
Finis  ita. 


There  is  a  scorching  glare  in  the  world,  but  there  is  a  cool  shade  under 
the  wing  of  God. 


The  Devil  is  allowed  to  tempt  thee  so  far  as  is  good  for  thee,  if  thou  art 
advancing  in  the  way  of  Godliness. 


We  call  them  happy  who  have  learnt  to  bear  the  discomforts  of  life,  and 
not  to  toss  the  yoke,  under  its  discipline. 


72 


Miscellanies. 


He  is  to  be  feared  who  fears  God.  The  wise  man  rules  the  stars.  The 
good  man  is  a  king,  when  a  slave ;  the  bad  man  is  a  slave,  when  a  king. 

They  are  to  be  praised  who  are  unwilling  to  prosper  with  the  World's 
prosperity,  and  to  perish  with  the  World's  jserdition. 

What  great  pains  men  take  to  be  miserable  eternally  ! 

If  we  love  wealth,  let  us  love  to  have  it  in  heaven,  where  it  will  never 
fail ;  if  we  love  honour,  let  us  love  to  have  it  where  no  one  will  envy  us ; 
if  we  love  health,  let  us  love  to  have  it  where  there  is  no  disease  nor  death, 
but  where  all  will  live  for  ever.   Let  all  our  loves  therefore  be  in  heaven. 


Him,  whom  no  happiness  corrupts  with  its  smiles,  no  unhappiness  will 
crush  by  its  frowns. 


All  Virtues  are  consummated  in  Love.  Temperance  is  Love,  i-eserving 
itself  wholly  to  God  ;  Fortitude  is  Love,  enduring  all  things  for  His  sake  ; 
Justice  is  Love,  serving  God,  and  therefore  ruling  others  well  in  those 
things  which  are  subject  to  man  ;  Prudence  is  Love,  discerning  aright 
between  those  things  which  bring  us  near  to  God,  and  those  which  draw 
us  away  from  Him, 

If  thy  heart  is  in  heaven,  the  tears  of  thine  eyes  will  be  dried  up. 

Dost  thou  desire  to  have  what  Christ  has  ?  Fear  not  to  suffer  what  He 
suffered.  He  says,  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life  (Via,  Veritas, 
Vita)  ;  the  Way,  by  which  we  must  walk  ;  the  Truth,  at  which  we  hope 
to  arrive ;  the  Life,  which  we  hope  to  live  for  evermore. 


The  earthly  gate  is  strait,  but  the  heavenly  city,  to  which  it  leads, 
is  wide.  Per  angusta  itur  ad  augusta.  The  way  is  narrow  to  labour, 
but  is  wide  to  love. 


That  man  is  happy,  not  who  has  what  he  loves,  but  who  loves  what  is 
worth  loving,  and  worth  having  for  ever. 

In  the  way  wherein  thou  walkest  as  a  pilgrim  this  is  thy  delight,  that 
it  leads  thee  to  thy  heavenly  home. 

The  beginning  of  life  is  also  the  beginning  of  death  to  -  us  who  are 
born  to  die. 


The  Martyr's  death-day  is  his  birthday. 

How  glorious  will  it  be  for  us  to  have  a  sunset  to  the  world  in  order  to 
have  a  sunrise  to  Christ  {S.  Ignat.) ;  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  world  to  open 
them  on  Him. 


Oh  that  I  could  fly  with  a  dove's  wings,  that  I  might  glide  to  my 
heavenly  nest. 

Our  brethren  who  have  fallen  asleep  in  Christ  have  not  left  us,  but  have 
gone  before  us. 


Let  us  gild  our  wings  by  communion  with  Chiist. 


Moral  and  Spiritual  Maxims.  73 

Love  not  thy  life  nor  hate,  but  what  thou  livest 
Live  well :  how  long  or  short,  commit  to  God. 

Know  the  opportunity.  Do  nothing  overmuch.  Moderation  is  best. 
Meditation  is  all  in  all. 


What  is  Life?    Meditation  for  Death. 


In  the  voyage  of  life  look  not  at  the  ships  around  thee,  but  at  the  stars 
above  thee. 


What  can  be  called  long  that  has  an  end  ? 

To  us  who  are  heirs  of  Eternity,  Adam  lived  yesterday. 

Time  how  short !    Eternity  how  long  ! 

0  my  God,  Thou  dwellest  in  silence,  alone,  majestic ;  smiting  illicit 
desires  with  penal  blindness. 


Woe  to  thee,  thou  stream  of  human  fashion,  who  rollest  away  in  thy 
torrent  the  sons  of  Eve  into  a  dangerous  sea,  which  even  they  can  hardly 
traverse  who  have  embarked  in  the  ship  of  the  Cross. 


Thou  fearest  shipwreck,  and  yet  dost  thou  hug  the  leaden  weight  of 
earthly  things  ?    Lay  hold  of  the  wood  of  the  Cross,  and  thou  wilt  swim. 

Of  the  Eternal  City,  the  King  is  Truth  ;  the  Law  is  Love ;  the  fran- 
chise, Eternity. 

Mors  est  ventura ;  ne  fac  quae  scis  nocitura. 

Our  Millenniums  hang  on  our  Moments. 

Our  hours  pass  by,  and  are  put  down  to  our  account. 

God  punishes  some  things  in  this  world,  lest  we  should  doubt  of  His 
Providence ;  He  leaves  many  things  unpunished,  that  we  may  look  for  a 
Judgment  to  come. 

The  days  of  thy  Death  and  of  Judgment  are  unknown  to  thee,  in  order 
that  every  day  of  thy  life  may  be  observed  by  thee. 

Such  as  we  are  at  our  death  we  shall  be  at  the  judgment ;  therefore 
consider  the  end.  If  thou  livest  well,  what  harm  can  death  do  to  thee 
who  art  mortal  ? 


At  sunrise  think  of  thine  own  rising  from  the  grave ;  at  sunset  think 
of  thy  sleep  in  death. 

Meditate  daily  on  the  last  five  things  ;  Death,  Resurrection,  Heaven, 
Hell,  and  Eternity  ;  consider  all  things  with  reference  to  Eternity. 


ALL  GLORY  BE  TO  GOD  ALONE. 


ON  THE  INCREASE  OF  INFIDELITY,  AND 
THE  NEED  OF  A  LEAENED  CLERGY. 


A  remarkable  document  has  lately  been  put  forth  by  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  of  French  Bishops,  the  Bishop  of 
Orleans.1 

It  is  a  calm,  dispassionate  statement,  corroborated  by  ample 
evidence,  of  opinions  prevalent  in  that  great  country,  with 
regard  to  Beligion  and  Morals,  as  displayed  in  its  popular 
Literature.  The  spirit  and  language  of  that  Literature  as 
there  exhibited  equals,  if  not  exceeds,  in  bold  impiety  any- 
thing that  was  vented  and  disseminated  in  that  country  in 
the  days  of  Rousseau,  Voltaire,  and  of  the  Reign  of  Terror. 
The  Bishop  of  Orleans  states  his  deliberate  conviction, 
grounded  on  proofs  which  he  adduces,  that  there  is  a  deep- 
laid  conspiracy2  for  unchristianizing  the  people,  and  for 
disorganizing  and  subverting  the  fabric  of  society. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  some  of  the  audacious  blas- 
phemies quoted  in  his  pages  might  be  paralleled  from  our 
own  contemporary  literature.  But  the  melancholy  question 
which  arises,  and  one  which  deeply  concerns  us  is,  What  in 
that  great  country  is  now  provided  by  the  Church  as  an 
antidote  for  this  deadly  poison  ?  The  answer,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  must  be,  that  the  present  temper  and  practice  of 
Ultramontanism,  which  unhappily  has  absorbed  the  Gal- 
licanism  of  Bossuet  and  Fleury  and  Fenelon,  and  reigns 
supreme  (as  far  as  Religion  is  concerned)  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries,  are  such  as  rather  to  aggravate  the  disease  than 

1  Ou  allons-nous  1  par  M.  l'liveque  d'Orleans,  Membre  du  Senat. 
Paris,  Douniol,  1876. 

2  Ibid. 


Infidelity — Prospects  of  Europe.  75 


to  mitigate  it.  The  Roman  Papacy  is  endeavouring  to  act 
on  the  popular  mind,  not  only  by  exorbitant  claims  to  abject 
submission,  and  almost  to  divine  worship,  but  by  encourage- 
ment of  frauds  and  superstitions,  of  false  miracles  and 
apparitions,  and  pilgrimages  to  objects  of  devotion  canonized 
by  itself.  Eome  is  defying  Reason  and  History,  and  is 
deifying  itself,  and  is  revolting  the  human  intellect  from 
Christianity  and  goading  it  to  Unbelief. 

And  how  are  these  dangers  to  be  met  ?  Not  by  civil 
penalties  and  legal  coercion,  such  as  are  now  being  adopted 
in  Germany.  Loyalty,  Patriotism,  and  Enthusiasm  cannot 
be  created  by  such  agencies  as  these.  No  one  is  a  martyr  for 
negations.  Rather  they  may  aggravate  the  evil.  Erastus 
does  the  work  of  Hildebrand. 

Humanly  speaking,  the  hopes  of  Christendom  (let  us  say 
it  with  thankfulness  not  unmingled  with  fear),  are  with  the 
Church  of  England,  and  the  Churches  in  her  communion  in 
these  kingdoms,  and  in  our  Colonies  and  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  to  which  we  may  add  the  Old  Catholics 
of  continental  Europe.  No  religious  communion  will  be  able 
to  stand  against  the  terrible  storm  which  is  about  to  sweep 
over  Christendom,  that  does  not  appeal  to  Holy  Scripture 
as  its  Rule  of  Faith,  and  which,  does  not  hold  in  its  hands  an 
open  Bible,  and  which  does  not  interpret  that  Bible  accord- 
ing to  the  consent  of  the  Church  Universal  as  declared  in 
the  Creeds,  and  that  does  not  preach  the  Word  of  God,  and 
dispense  the  Christian  Sacraments,  by  a  body  of  faithful  and 
learned  men  deriving  their  commission  from  Christ  and  His 
Apostles,  by  uninterrupted  succession  and  lawful  ordination. 

Such  a  religious  society,  thanks  be  to  God,  the  Church  of 
England  is. 

But  in  order  that  the  Church  may  do  her  proper  work,  she 
must  shun  strife,  and  cherish  peace ;  and  her  Clergy  must 
not  degenerate  from  their  character  for  learning  and  intellec- 
tual culture  :  rather  they  ought  to  make  progress  in  those 
respects,  in  order  to  encounter  successfully  the  dangers 
which  threaten  Society. 

These  remarks  may  introduce  the  following  words  read  by 
me  at  "  the  Lambeth  Conference  "  on  July  4th,  1878  : — 


Miscellanies. 


How  is  modem  Infidelity  to  be  dealt  with  ?  This  involves 
the  question,  What  are  its  causes  ?  Among  the  principal 
ones  (as  it  seems  to  me)  is  the  present  condition  of  the 
Clergy  in  Christendom.  "  Where  there  is  no  Vision  the 
people  perish"  (Prov.  xxix.  18).  "Like  People,  like 
Priest,"  says  the  Prophet  Hosea  (ch.  iv.  9),  and  another 
Prophet,  Malachi,  writes,  "  The  Priest's  lips  should  keep 
knowledge  "  (Malachi  ii.  7).  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth," 
says  our  Blessed  Lord  to  His  disciples,  especially  to  the 
Clergy.  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world;  but  if  the  salt 
loses  its  savour,"  and  if  the  light  is  dimmed,  what  must  the 
world  be  ?  We  are  not  living  in  the  middle  ages.  Every 
one  now  reads,  every  one  in  the  upper  classes  professes  to 
think.  The  nineteenth  century  requires  a  clear  head,  a 
strong  hand,  as  well  as  a  warm  heart,  enlightened  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  But  what  is  now  the  condition  of  the  Clergy, 
the  religious  teachers  of  Christendom  ?  In  many  countries 
the  Christian  Ministry  has  fallen  into  contempt,  and  has 
drawn  down  Christianity  along  with  it.  I  will  not  speak 
anything  on  my  own  authority  :  but  will  appeal  to  the  testi- 
mony of  leading  Ecclesiastics  on  this  point.  As  to  the 
Eastern  Church,  let  me  refer  to  the  address  delivered  by 
Gregory,  Metropolitan  of  Chios,  and  published  by  him  at 
Constantinople  two  years  ago.  He  there  mourns  over  the 
illiterate  condition  of  the  Eastern  Clergy  secular  and  regular; 
and  complains  that  the  supply  of  candidates  for  Holy  Orders 
is  miserably  scanty  and  mean.  No  wonder  that  religious 
indifference  and  unbelief  prevail  there. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  Western  Church.  As  to  Italy,  the 
words  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  its  Ecclesiastics,  the 
Abate  Eosmini3  are  very  significant.  Among  what  he  calls 
the  "  Cinque  Piaghe  della  Santa  Chiesa  "  (the  five  wounds 
of  Holy  Church),  one  of  the  most  grievous,  in  his  opinion,  is 
the  incompetency  and  degradation  of  the  Clergy.  They  are 
of  low  origin  and  ill-educated.  The  recent  surrender  of  all 
Episcopal  appointments  in  Italy  and  Sicily  to  the  Roman 
Pontiff  will  increase  the  mischief.  So  will  the  Syllabus  ;  and 
the  new  dogmas  of  1854  and  1870.  Dr.  Dollinger,  in  his 
3  See  above,  vol.  i.  p.  179,  and  pp.  175—178. 


Condition  of  the  Continental  Clergy.  77 


book  "  on  the  Church  and  Churches/'  echoes  the  same  com- 
plaint :  and  the  pathetic,  but  abortive  appeal  lately  made 
by  one  of  the  most  eloquent  Prelates  of  France,  Mon- 
seigneur  Dupanloup,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  to  the  Senate  of 
that  country  on  behalf  of  the  pauperized  Priesthood  and 
starved  and  stunted  Seminaries  of  the  French  Church,  gave 
clear  evidence  of  the  inability  of  her  Clergy  to  cope  with  the 
scepticism  of  that  quick  and  restless  people.  Reduced 
almost  to  mendicancy  (you  will  remember  the  late  Bishop  of 
Winchester's  statement  in  Convocation  on  this  point)  the 
Roman  Catholic  Priesthood  in  France  has  been  tempted  to 
trade  in  false  miracles,  apparitions  and  pilgrimages,  in  order 
to  raise  money  ;  and  by  a  mercenary  traffic  in  pious  frauds 
they  have  repelled  the  intelligent  laity  from  Christianity, 
and  driven  them  into  Infidelity. 

In  Protestant  Germany  the  state  of  things  is  little  better. 
It  has  lost  the  Creeds  and  the  Episcopate.  A  learned  and 
pious  Pastor  and  Expositor  of  Scripture,  Dr.  Rudolph  Stier, 
laments  that  in  the  German  Universities  scarcely  any  of  the 
Ecclesiastical  Professorships  of  Dogmatic  Theology,  Church 
History,  and  Biblical  Criticism  are  now  filled  by  Clergymen; 
and  this  separation  of  the  professorial  Chair  of  the  Univer- 
sities from  the  Ministry  of  the  Church  has  produced  learned 
but  sceptical  Theologians  and  illiterate  and  rationalistic 
Pastors.  The  fountains  of  sacred  Truth  and  Biblical 
Learning  have  been  poisoned  in  the  Colleges  of  Germany, 
and  the  streams  in  the  towns  and  villages  are  polluted.  No 
wonder  that  unbelief  should  prevail.  No  wonder  that  its 
necessary  consequences,  Socialism  and  Communism,  should 
rear  their  heads  and  threaten  the  persons  of  sovereigns  and 
the  security  of  national  institutions.  Here  is  a  warning  for 
ourselves. 

Two  forms  of  anti-christianism  are  now  dominant  in 
Europe,  and  are  acting  and  re-acting  on  each  other  in  violent 
antagonism  ;  and  both  are  equally  hostile  to  religion  and  to 
society;  Ultramontanism  on  the  one  side,  and  Infidelity  on 
the  other.  And  the  Christian  Church,  as  represented  by  her 
Bishops  and  Clergy,  is  almost  powerless  to  save  the  Laity 
from  Secularism  and  Scepticism,  and  to  win  them  back  to 


Miscellanies. 


the  Faith.  My  right  reverend  brethren,  it  would  seem  as 
if  the  hopes  of  Christendom  were  now  concentrated  on 
the  English  and  American  Churches ;  and  if  these  hopes 
rest  on  the  Anglo-American  Church,  surely  they  depend  on 
the  efficiency  of  the  Anglo-American  Episcopate  and  of  the 
Anglo-American  Priesthood.  They  depend  mainly  on  their 
piety,  learning,  wisdom,  energy,  zeal,  charity,  and  unity. 
Thank  God  we  have  much  to  encourage  us.  This  our 
gathering  of  Bishops  as  brethren  at  Lambeth,  from  the  four 
quarters  of  the  world,  cheers  and  strengthens  us.  We  have 
numberless  other  signs  of  God's  presence  with  us,  and  of 
His  blessing  upon  us.  But  have  we  not  also  much  to  alarm 
us  ?  The  Church  of  England  seems  to  be  losing  her  hold  on 
her  ancient  Colleges  ;  at  least  that  hold  is  much  weakened. 
Our  Universities  are  almost  ceasing  to  be  "  Schools  of  the 
Prophets."  Our  Nobility  and  Gentry  seem  reluctant  to  de- 
dicate their  sons  to  the  service  of  Christ  and  His  Church. 
A  great  part  of  the  revenues  of  our  Cathedrals  have  been 
applied  to  other  purposes,  and  is  no  longer  available 
for  the  encouragement  of  sacred  Learning  and  Theological 
Science.  We  are  in  danger  of  declining  from  that  high 
position  which  the  Clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  has 
held  for  three  centuries  ;  and  this  unhappily  at  a  time  when 
Literature  and  Science  are  eagerly  stimulated  in  other 
professions,  and  when  a  restless  and  reckless  spirit  of 
speculation  doubts  and  discusses  everything.  The  din  of 
the  battle  is  now  sounding  in  our  ears.  How  shall  we  meet  it? 
If  the  fortress  of  the  Faith  is  to  be  defended,  and  if  also 
our  troops  are  to  be  led  forth  with  hope  of  victory  and 
conquest  into  the  domains  of  Unbelief,  they  must  be  not  only 
increased,  but  be  better  disciplined.  We  need  a  learned 
Clergy,  skilled  in  Languages  and  Literature,  and  in  Moral, 
Metaphysical,  and  Natural  Science.  We  require  more  of 
sound,  definite,  dogmatic  teaching,  more  knowledge  of  Holy 
Scripture  and  Church  History  for  our  Priesthood ;  we  need 
more  of  breadth  and  depth  and  height  in  the  education  of  our 
Candidates  for  Holy  Orders.  How  can  this  be  obtained  ?  By 
Theological  seminaries  or  otherwise.  By  the  quickening  of 
the  inner  life  of  our  Cathedrals.    Ought  we  not  also  to  en- 


The  English  Clergy, 


79 


deavour  to  enlist  the  intellect  of  the  rising  generation  and  of 
the  upper  as  well  as  of  the  middle  classes  of  society  by  repre- 
senting to  them  that  (whatever  some  may  think)  Theology  is 
the  noblest  of  Sciences,  the  Queen  of  Sciences.  Ought  we  not 
to  remind  them  of  such  truths  as  were  proclaimed  to  ancient 
Christendom  in  the  East  by  S.  Chrysostom  in  his  work  on 
the  Priesthood,  and  in  the  West  by  S.  Gregory  the  Great  in 
his  Pastoral,  and  were  declared  to  our  own  forefathers  by 
such  men  as  George  Herbert  in  his  Country  Parson,  and 
by  Bishop  Bull  in  his  sermon  on  the  Priest's  Office,  and 
are  embodied  in  our  own  Ordinal  concerning  the  weighty 
charge  and  arduous  difficulty  of  the  Priest's  Office,  its  high 
dignity  and  great  excellency ;  and  ought  we  not  boldly  to 
assert  that  there  is  no  service  in  the  world  so  honourable  as 
that  of  the  King  of  kings  ?  And  next,  as  has  just  been  so 
eloquently  pleaded  before  us  by  one  of  our  right  reverend 
brethren,  let  us  be  sure,  and  let  us  act  and  induce  others  to 
act  in  the  confident  persuasion,  that  eventually  the  Triumph 
of  the  Faith  will  be  complete  and  eternal.  These  are  matters 
which  I  venture  to  commend  to  your  consideration. 

One  other  point.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Infidelity  is 
now  greatly  strengthened  and  encouraged  by  the  unhappy 
divisions  and  controversies  of  the  Clergy  as  to  questions  of  doc- 
trine, discipline,  and  ritual.  The  unbeliever  says  to  us  " First 
settle  among  yourselves  what  we  are  to  believe,  and  how  we 
are  to  worship  God,  and  then  come  and  preach  to  us, — but 
not  till  then."  The  unbrotherly  strifes  and  angry  debates 
among  our  Clergy  are  exciting  the  scoffs  and  sneers  of 
Infidels,  and  are  alienating  the  confidence  and  affection  of 
the  Laity  from  us ;  and  while  some  are  being  beguiled  into 
Romanism  by  them,  others  are  driven  to  Puritanism  and 
Unbelief.  Surely,  my  Lords,  the  time  is  come,  when  the 
Bishops  of  the  Church  should  unite  as  one  man  in  a  firm 
resolve  to  maintain  what  is  Scriptural  and  Catholic  in  doctrine 
and  discipline  in  the  Church ;  and  to  resist  whatever  is  un- 
scriptural  and  uncatholic  ;  and  also  to  uphold  what  our  own 
National  Churches  have  received,  and  have  authoritatively 
decreed  in  their  Synods,  in  ritual,  and  to  resist  what  is 
unauthorized  and  Romish.   Let  us  be  all  of  one  mind  among 


8o 


Miscellanies. 


ourselves  in  defending  the  Truth  of  God  and  the  Order  of  His 
Church,  and  His  blessing  will  be  on  us. 

Lastly,  we  know  from  the  sure  word  of  Prophecy  that  the 
last  days  will  be  days  of  Unbelief,  and  of  rebuke  and  blas- 
phemy. The  nearer  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ  is,  the  more 
fierce  will  be  the  rage  of  Anti-Christ.  "When  the  Son  of  Man 
cometh  (asks  our  Blessed  Lord),  shall  He  find  the  faith  on 
earth  ?  "  And  when  those  days  come,  and  who  can  say 
whether  they  may  not  now  be  near?  the  strength  of  the  Church 
will  be  in  cleaving  to  Holy  Scripture  and  to  Prayer.  There 
is  our  armour  against  Unbelief,  the  sword  of  the  Spirit 
which  is  the  Word  of  God ;  and  the  shield  of  Faith,  con- 
tinuing instant  in  Prayer.  Those  days  may  be  days  of 
martyrdom  ;  and  the  Church  may  be  like  the  proto-martyr, 
St.  Stephen,  first  preaching  boldly  the  truth  from  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  and  then,  when  the  storm  of  persecution  rages 
about  him,  kneeling  down  in  prayer,  interceding  for  his 
persecutors,  and  commending  his  spirit  to  his  Divine  Lord, 
and  so  falling  asleep  in  Him,  to  be  awakened  to  Eternal 
Glory. 

I  will  not  anticipate  the  questions  concerning  the  continu- 
ance or  revision  of  our  Authorized  Version  of  Holy  Scripture 
for  the  use  of  the  whole  Anglican  Communion,  and  perhaps  of 
one  and  the  same  Lectionary  for  all  our  Churches.  These 
indeed  would  be  golden  bonds  of  union  for  us  all.  May  I 
add  that  the  appointment  of  some  annual  seasons  of  simul- 
taneous Intercession  throughout  the  whole  Anglican  Com- 
munion for  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  us,  and 
on  the  Churches  committed  to  our  charge,  would  strengthen 
us  all  in  the  faith,  and  enable  us  to  contend  earnestly  for  it  ? 

Postscript. — Since  the  above  paper  was  written,  two  re- 
markable publications  have  appeared  in  France ;  one  by  a 
French  Ecclesiastic,  the  Abbe  Bougaud,  Vicar-General  of 
Orleans,  "  Le  Grand  Peril  de  I'JEglise  de  France "  (3rd 
Edition,  Paris,  1878);  the  bther,  by  a  Layman,  M.  Eugene 
Reveillaud,  "La  Question  ReUgieuse"  (Gth  Edition,  Paris, 
1878). 

The  former  gives  an  alarming  picture  of  the  condition  of 


French  writings  on  the  French  Church. 


the  French  Church,  its  poverty,  its  lack  of  learning,  pp.  46 — 
49,  87;  the  languishing  state  of  its  Theological  Seminaries, 
and  the  failure  of  Candidates  for  Holy  Orders  ;  so  that 
not  less  than  2,568  Parishes  in  France  are  now  without 
Parish  Priests  (p.  38)  and  their  populations  are  in  danger  of 
lapsing  into  heathenism.  The  latter  writer  investigates  the 
causes  of  these  phenomena  ;  ho  attributes  the  failure  of  the 
influence  of  the  French  Church  to  its  doctrinal  errors  and  cor- 
ruptions especially  its  late  extravagances  (such  as  the  dogma 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception  and  Papal  Infallibility),  and 
the  pious  frauds  and  impostures  (such  as  those  of  La  Salette 
and  Lourdes,  see  pages  7 — 36).  He  avows  his  conviction 
that  the  Church  of  France  is  unable  to  counteract  the  effects 
of  Unbelief,  and  to  avert  the  dangers  which  menace  Society 
and  the  National  Institutions  of  France.  He  avows  himself 
no  longer  "  a  Catholic ;"  but  he  is  in  a  state  of  alarm  for 
his  Country,  and  he  declares  that  if  France  is  to  be  saved,  it 
can  only  be  by  Christianity. 

What  form  of  Christianity  is  to  be  adopted — is  the  subject 
of  inquiry  in  the  latter  portions  of  his  work. 

Two  remarkable  Essays  (written,  it  is  said,  by  a  French 
Seminarist)  have  been  reprinted  from  the  Gourrier  de  Lyon, 
September,  1878,  containing  a  review  of  the  Abbe  Bougaud's 
book.  The  Essayist,  while  fully  admitting  the  truth  of  the 
Abbe's  statements,  affirms  that  the  unhappy  condition  of 
the  French  Church  is  due  in  a  great  measure  to  itself ;  and 
he  also  asserts  that  if  it  is  to  exercise  a  moral  and  religious 
influence  over  the  French  Nation,  and  to  save  it  from 
impending  dangers,  it  must  reform  itself  from  within — 
especially  that  the  system  of  clerical  Education  must  be 
wholly  different  from  what  it  is. 

These  questions  have  a  deep  interest  for  ourselves  ;  they 
suggest  motives  of  thankfulness  for  the  constitution  of  our 
own  Church — Scriptural,  Primitive,  Apostolic,  and  Catholic, 
and  for  the  principles  of  the  English  Reformation;  they  are 
also  fraught  with  salutary  warning,  lest  the  Clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England  should  incur  the  danger  of  forfeiting  their 
own  influence  on  the  national  mind  and  character.  And  they 
awaken  a  feeling  of  deep  sympathy  with  the  Clergy  and 

VOL.  III.  G 


82 


Miscellanies. 


Church  of  France,  and  incite  us  to  examine,  whether  by 
friendly  intercourse,  and  earnest  prayers,  we  might  not  do 
something,  with  the  Divine  blessing,  to  help  in  restoring  the 
Church  of  France  to  the  high  position  she  occupied  in  tbe 
days  of  St.  Irenaeus,  St.  Hilary  and  St.  Martin,  and  to  repay 
the  debt  we  owe  her  for  the  spiritual  benefits  conferred  by 
her  on  ourselves  in  ancient  times. 


ON  THE  DESTINY  OF  MOHAMMEDANISM,  ESPECIALLY 
IN  THE  TURKISH  DOMINIONS. 


The  minds  of  men  have  been  lately  fixed  on  the  East,  and 
have  been  speculating  on  the  destinies  of  the  great  Moham- 
medan Power,  which  rules  at  Constantinople.  Let  us  in- 
quire whether  the  Inspired  Oracles  shed  any  light  on.  this 
subject. 

When  we  consider  that  the  religion  of  Mohammed  has 
been  in  the  world  for  more  than  twelve  hundred  and  sixty 
years,  and  that  it  has  spread  over  Africa,  Asia,  and  a  con- 
siderable part  of  Europe;  and  that  it  declares — to  quote 
the  words  of  the  Koran,1  which  it  receives  as  a  Divine 
revelation — that  "  the  true  religion  in  the  sight  of  God  is 
Islam,  and  whosoever  followeth  any  other  religion  shall  be 
of  those  who  perish/'  and  when  we  remember  also  that 
it  has  waged  war  for  more  than  ten  centuries  against  the 
Church  of  God,  it  would  seem,  a  priori,  to  be  hardly  pro- 
bable that  no  reference  to  Mohammedanism  should  be  found 
in  the  Apocalypse,  or  Revelation  of  the  Apostle  and  Evan- 
gelist St.  John,  which  is  a  Divine  prophecy  concerning  the 
Church  of  God,  from  the  Apostolic  age  to  the  Second 
Coming  of  Christ.  And  while  it  appears  to  be  likely  that 
Mohammedanism  would  be  described  in  it,  we  shall  see 
good  reason  to  agree  with  those  learned  men  2  who  recognize 
it  in  the  Ninth  Chapter  of  that  book.    Let  us  examine  it. 

An  angel  sounds  the  Fifth  Trumpet,  and  a  star  is  seen 
which  has  fallen  from  heaven.    In  the  language  of  the  Apo- 

1  See  the  Koran,  chaps,  ii.  and  iii. 

2  Such  as  Joseph  Mede,  Bishop  Wilson  of  Sodor  and  Man,  Bishop 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Bishop  Halifax,  Professor  White,  Bamp- 
ton  Lectures,  1784,  Bishop  Van  Mildert,  Boyle  Lectui'es,  Rev.  Isaac 
Williams  on  the  Apocalypse,  and  others. 

Q  2 


84 


Miscellanies. 


calypse  a  Star  is  a  Teacher  of  Christianity,  a  luminary  in  the 
firmament  of  the  Church/'  The  fall  of  a  star  represents 
religious  defection  and  apostasy.  The  fallen  star  is  described 
in  this  prophecy  as  having  the  key  of  the  bottomless  pit, 
which  is  the  abode  of  the  powers  of  darkness.4 

Out  of  this  pit  thus  opened  arises  smoke,  by  which  "  the 
sun  and  the  air  are  darkened  ;"  and  "out  of  the  smoke  come 
forth  locusts  upon  the  earth,  and  they  have  power  as  scorpions  ;" 
but  they  do  "not  hurt  the  grass  of  the  earth,  neither  any 
green  thing,  neither  any  tree." 

It  is  clear  that  these  locusts  are  not  natural  locusts,  for 
locusts  do  not  issue  forth  from  smoke,  and  locusts  hurt  the 
earth's  vegetation  :  as  the  prophet  Joel  says,  "  The  land  is 
as  the  garden  of  Eden  before  them,  and  behind  them  a 
desolate  wilderness;  and  nothing  escapes  them."5  These 
locusts  therefore  of  the  Apocalypse  are  not  real,  but  typical; 
they  represent  a  desolating  power  ;  and  this  power,  in  its 
ravages,  is  compared  in  the  prophecy  to  scorpions,  and  to 
an  army  of  horses  rushing  to  the  battle. 

It  has  rightly  been  remarked  that  the  terms  locusts,  scor- 
pions, and  horses  point  to  Arabia,  the  native  country  of 
Mohammedanism.  Swarms  of  locusts  go  forth  like  dark 
clouds  from  that  region.  The  road  from  Arabia  to  Palestine 
is  called  "the  passage  of  scorpions."6  And  the  war-horse 
is  the  pride  of  Arabia,  as  described  by  the  patriarch  Job,7 
who  dwelt  in  that  country. 

Let  us  inquire  now,  What  gave  birth  to  Mohammedanism? 
It  was  the  smoke  which  darkened  Christendom  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  when  that  religion  arose  • 
it  was  the  smoke  arising  from  the  bottomless  pit,  opened  by 
the  falling  star ;  it  was  the  smoke  of  error,  of  superstition, 
of  idolatry,  of  bitter  strife  among  Christians,  engendered  by 
some  who  once  shone  as  stars  in  the  firmament  of  the  Church, 
and  fell  away  from  it,  especially  such  false  teachers  as  Arius, 
Nestorius,  Eutyches,  Apollinarius,  and  others.    All  writers 

3  Rev.  i.  16,  20.       4  Sec  Luke  viii.  31 ;  Rev.  xx.  1,  3. 

5  Joel  ii.  6  Num.  xxxiv.  4.  Judges  i.  36.  Cp.  Deut.  viii.  15. 

'  Job  xxxix.  18. 


Mohammedanism  as  foretold  in  the  Apocalypse.  85 


on  the  history  of  Mohammedanism 8  agree  in  this,  that  it  was 
due  to  the  heresies  and  schisms  of  Christians,  and  to  their 
creature-worship  and  idolatry  ;  and  it  was  used  by  God  as  a 
scourge  to  sting  like  the  scorpion,  and  as  a  plague  to  spread 
like  locusts,  and  to  chastise  degenerate  churches.  Yet  fur- 
ther, the  Koran  itself — the  Bible  of  Mohammedanism  — is 
"  compounded  of  Christian  heresies,"  and  "  compiled  from 
apocryphal  gospels."9 

To  proceed.  The  locusts  are  said  in  the  prophecy  to  hurt 
only  those  men  which  have  not  the  seal  of  God  in  their  fore- 
heads. In  the  Apocalypse,1  as  well  as  in  the  prophecies  of 
Ezekiel,  those  who  "  have  the  seal  of  God  "  are  true  believers. 
The  prophecy  therefore  assures  us  that  Mohammedanism 
does  not  hurt  true  Christians,  but  hurts  others  who  are  not 
loyal  to  Christ. 

But  it  may  perhaps  be  asked,  Did  not  Mohammedanism 
hurt  faithful  Christians  ?  No.  It  is  true  that  Mohamme- 
danism waged  war  against  the  Church,  and  put  many  faithful 
Christians  to  death.  But  Christ  is  more  powerful  than 
Mohammed,  and  He  has  given  a  blessed  assurance  to  all  true 
believers,  that  "  nothing  shall  in  any  wise  hurt  them."  Our 
Lord's  words  are  the  best  commentary  on  this  prophecy  ; 
He  foresaw  these  Mohammedan  scorpions ;  "  Behold,"  says 
He  to  His  disciples,  "  I  give  you  power  to  tread  on  serpents 
and  scorpions,  and  upon  all  the  power  of  the  enemy,  and 
nothing  shall  in  any  wise  hurt  you."2  Observe  also,  that  in 
the  Greek  Gospel,  the  word  for  hurt}  a  remarkable  one  in 

8  Dean  Prideaujr,  Preface  to  the  Life  of  Mohammed,  pp.  v  to  vii  : 
London,  Oth  ed.  1718.  See  also  Sale,  Preliminary  Discourse  to  the 
Koran,  sect  ii.  ;  Gibbon,  History,  chap.  1. ;  HaLlam,  Middle  Ages, 
chap.  vi. ;  Neander,  Church  History,  vol.  v.  p.  114;  Gieseler,  Church 
History,  sect.  27 ;  Milman,  Latin  Christianity,  book  iv.  chap.  i.  Isaac 
Williams  on  the  Apocalypse,  p.  151,  who  says,  "  Mahomet  himself  was 
not  a  star  fallen  from  heaven,  but  the  smoke  of  the  great  corruption, 
ignorance,  and  idolatry  which  had  hidden  the  Sun  of  righteousness  gave 
rise  to  a  definite  form  of  evil  which  is  seen  developed  in  these  locusts,  or 
in  Mahomet  and  his  followers.  Tichonius  says  that  the  star  here 
falling  to  the  earth  is  the  body  of  many  stars,  through  sin  falling  from 
heaven,  i.  e.  from  the  Church." 

0  Dr. Isaac Barrow,u.202;  iv.228;  Milman  and  Hallam,  quoted  above. 

1  Rev.  vii.  8.  Ezek.  ix.  4.  *  Luke  x.  18. 


86 


Miscellanies. 


our  Lord's  declaration,  is  the  same  word  as  here.3  Our  Lord 
also  says  that  death  for  His  sake  is  life,  "  Fear  not  them  who 
kill  the  body,  and  afterward  have  no  more  that  they  can 
do;"4  "  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  shall  find  it ;  "  5  "  He  that  loveth 
his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world 
shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal."6 

Therefore  this  prophecy  is  an  encouragement.  It  assures 
the  fait hful  of  every  age  and  country  that  they  cannot  be 
hurt  by  the  scorpions  of  Islamism;  and  it  is  a  warning  to  all 
who  apostatize  from  the  faith  of  Christ  and  embrace  the 
creed  of  the  Arabian  impostor,  that,  though  they  may  save 
their  lives  in  this  world,  they  will  lose  them  in  the  world  to 
come ;  and  it  goes  on  to  say,  that  if  they  forsake  their  Lord 
through  fear  of  death,  or  hope  of  worldly  favour,  their  life, 
even  here  on  earth,  will  be  a  wretched  existence,  like  that 
of  men  who  seek  death  and  do  not  find  it,  and  who  may 
desire  to  die,  and  death  flees  from  them ;  a  miserable  con- 
dition, represented  as  most  shameful  and  agonizing  by  the 
patriarch  Job  and  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah  in  the  sharpest 
paroxysms  of  their  sufferings.7 

This  prophecy  also  clearly  reveals  the  solemn  truth  that 
they  who  encourage  and  support  Mohammedanism  are  war- 
ring against  Christ. 

It  is  next  said  in  this  prophecy  that  "the  shapes  of  the 
locusts  were  like  tmfo  horses  prepared  unto  battle."  We  may 
compare  these  words  with  those  of  the  prophet  Joel  speaking 
of  the  Chaldaean  armies  coming  against  Jerusalem  :  "  The 
appearance  of  them  is  as  the  appearances  of  horses  ;  and  as 
horsemen,  so  shall  they  run.  Like  the  noise  of  chariots  on 
the  tops  of  mountains  shall  they  leap,  as  a  strong  people  set 
in  battle  array ; "  8  In  like  manner  St.  John  here  says, 
"  The  sound  of  their  wings  is  as  the  sound  of  chariots  of 
many  horses  running  to  battle."9  The  Arabian  cavalry  are 
compared  by  him  to  the  Arabian  locusts.  In  some  languages 
locusts 1  and  horses  have  a  similar  name.  Saracens  and  Otto- 

3  ahiKhv.  4  Matt.  x.  28.  5  Matt.  x.  29. 

c  John  xii.  25.  7  See  Job  ii.  21  ;  vi.  15,  16.  Jerem.  viii.  3. 

3  Joel  ii.  4,  5.  ,J  Verse  9.         1  Called  in  Italian,  cavalette. 


Mohammedanism  in  the  Apocalypse. 


37 


mans  are  nations  of  horsemen.  The  fury  of  the  charge  of  the 
Moslem  cavalry,  and  of  their  riders  brandishing  their  scimitars 
with  wonderful  dexterity,  and  rushing  to  the  conflict  with 
the  terrible  war-cry,  "  Allah  !  Allah  !  "  are  well  known. 

"  And  on  their  heads,"  it  is  said  in  this  prophecy,  "  there 
are  as  it  were  crowns  like  gold,  and  their  faces  as  the  faces  of 
men,  and  their  hair  as  the  hair  of  women,  and  their  teeth  as 
the  teeth  of  lions."  The  word  for  crown  here  is  crTefyavos,  a 
crown  of  victory  ;2  and  they  are  contrasted  here  with  those 
holy  persons  in  the  Apocalypse  who  are  represented  in  the 
fourth  chapter,  the  fourth  verse,  as  wearing  golden  crowns  of 
victory.  That  is,  the  crowns  of  these  fierce  Mohammedan 
warriors  are  not  real  crowns,  nor  are  they  in  truth  of  gold ; 
they  have  only  a  splendid  semblance  of  glory  and  triumph, 
compared  with  the  genuine  lustre  and  true  victory  of  the 
saints  of  God.3 

Their  faces  also  are  represented  as  the  faces  of  men,  their 
hair  as  the  hair  of  women  ;  and  this  is  also  characteristic  of 
the  Saracens.  Some  (as  Isaac  Williams  in  his  Exposition 
of  the  Apocalypse,  p.  149)  regard  this  as  a  representation 
of  the  union  of  luxurious  sensuality  and  savage  cruelty  in 
the  Mohammedan  character.  But  it  may  also  have  a  literal 
meaning.  The  hair  of  Mohammed  hung  in  long  tresses  over 
his  shoulders,  and  retained  its  dark  colour  to  the  day  of  his 
death;4  and  the  Arabians  and  Saracens  are  described  as 
wearing  their  hair  long  and  flowing,  and  sometimes  plaited 
like  women.5    And  the  prophecy  also  says,. that  though  they 

■  On  the  gold-embroidered  uslduf  of  Ottoman  warriors,  see  D'Ohsson, 
Tableau  de  l'Empire  Othoman,  iv.  114. 

3  This  is  well  expressed  by  Saymo  in  his  Exposition  of  the  Apoca  - 
lypse,  who  says,  "The  elders  in  the  fourth  chapter  have  golden  ciowns 
011  their  heads,  signifying  their  triumphant  victory ;  but  these  evil 
warriors  have  not  real  crowns,  but  only  certain  figures  of  crowns ;  nor 
are  these  figures  of  crowns  really  gold,  but  only  like  gold,  counterfeits  of 
what  is  true."    And  so  Arethas  on  the  Apocalypse. 

*  Br.  J.  M.  Arnold,  Islam,  p.  65.  Sir  W.  Muir,  Life  of  Mohammed, 
p.  345,  and  so  Abas,  his  uncle,  see  D'Ohsson,  iv.  125. 

5  Flirt.  Nat  Hist.  vi.  33.  Amman.  MarcelUn.  xiv.  4;  xxxi.  10, 
where  Valcsius  says,  "Such  was  the  costume  of  the  Saracens,  wearing 
their  hair  long  and  braided,  hanging  down  on  their  backs,  '  crinitis  vitta- 
tisque  capitibus,' "  in  the  words  of  S.  Jerome,  de  Vita  Malchi,  torn.  iv. 


88 


Miscellanies. 


have  faces  like  men  and  hair  like  women,  and  have  therefore 
a  semblance  of  effeminacy  and  gentleness,  yet  their  wrath  is 
terrible ;  they  not  only  sweep  over  the  earth  like  locusts,  and 
sting  like  scorpions,  but  they  devour  '"'with  the  teeth  of  lions.5' 
This  has  been  verified  in  the  sanguinary  carnage  and  fero- 
cious outrages  perpetrated  by  the  armies  of  Islam  for  twelve 
hundred  years  in  Christendom,  and  recently  in  our  own  age. 

In  the  tenth  verse  of  this  prophecy,  this  power,  which 
has  been  compared  to  locusts  and  horses,  is  said  to  have 
"  tails  like  scorpions,  and  there  are  stings  in  its  tails."  It 
may  be  thought  fanciful  to  observe  that  the  emblems  of 
power  in  the  standards  of  the  Moslem  army  are  horse-tails6 
plaited  together  and  mounted  on  a  pike.  I  do  not  lay  stress 
upon  this ;  but  how  often  has  the  sight  of  it  pierced  the 
hearts  of  Christians  with  fear  and  anguish,  and  how  often 
has  the  exercise  of  that  savage  power  stung  them  with 
agony  and  death  as  with  the  sting  of  scorpions  ! 

And  now  what  follows  ?  St.  John  says  that  they  have 
power  to  hurt  men  five  months.  This  is  said  by  him  twice.7 
What  does  this  mean  ?  It  has  been  observed  by  naturalists 
that  locusts  come  forth  in  the  spring  and  disappear  in  the 
autumn,  when  they  are  made  torpid  by  cold/  They  prevail 
for  five  months,  from  April  to  September,  and  their  ravages 
are  confined  within  these  limits  of  time.  The  meaning, 
therefore,  may  be,  that  as  the  action  of  natural  locusts  is 
restrained  by  God,  so  it  will  be  also  with  these  typical 
locusts  of  Islam.  They  will  ravage  the  earth  for  a  time, 
predetermined  by  God ;  but  the  day  will  come  when  they 
will  be  benumbed  and  frozen,  perhaps  by  some  cold  blast 
from  the  north.9    But  this  is  certain  that  in  God's  own  time 

pt.  ii.  p.  92.  D'Ohsson  says,  iv.  126,  that  though  the  Turks  despise  what 
is  womanlike,  yet  in  order  to  preserve  the  usage  of  the  Saracens,  and  the 
practice  of  Mohammed  and  his  disciples,  and  though  they  shave  their 
heads,  they  take  care  to  leave  on  the  crown  of  the  head,  like  the  Chinese, 
"une  espece  de  toupet,  que  Ton  noue,  et  que  l'on  cache  sous  le  turban." 

6  Called  Toughs.  Thornton,  Present  State  of  Turkey,  i.  267—269 ; 
D'Herhelot,  Biblioth.  Orientale,  i.  199. 

7  Verses  5,  10.  8  Bochavt,  Hierozoic,  iv.  c.  8,  p.  495. 

9  This  is  the  exposition  given  by  some  ancient  interpreters,  as  in  the 
Catena  on  the  Apocalypse,  p.  527,  ed.  Cramer. 


Passing  away  of  Mohammedanism. 


89 


they  will  have  an  end,  and  this  is  surely  worth  noting;  for 
Mohammedanism  proclaims  itself  to  be  the  only  true  faith, 
and  the  only  permanent  religion ;  it  professes  in  the  Koran 
that  it  was  delivered  by  God  through  the  Augel  Gabriel,  to 
Mohammed,  after  the  revelations  given  by  Moses  and  Jesus 
Christ,  Whom  it  ventures  to  eulogize,  and  yet  dares  to  mis- 
represent, and  Whose  revelations  it  presumes  to  say  have 
been  now  superseded  by  itself.  Mohammedanism  claims  to 
be  universal  and  eternal.  It  was  indeed  due  (as  the 
prophecy  declares)  to  a  fallen  star  who  had  the  Tcey  of  the 
abyss  and  let  it  loose;  but  it  boasts  that  it  alone  has  the  key 
of  paradise  and  heaven  ;  it  tramples  under  foot  and  would 
stamp  to  powder  all  other  creeds.  It  would  make  all  men 
— yes,  all  Prophets  and  Apostles  and  Evangelists,  and  even 
Christ  Himself — to  bow  down  before  it,  and  would  reisrn 
supreme  and  alone  in  the  world.  Assuredly,  then,  it  was 
worth  saying  that  its  sway  is  limited  ;  and  that,  whereas, 
as  St..  John  declares  in  the  Apocalypse,'  "the  Gospel  is 
everlasting,"  and  as  our  Lord  declares,  "  Heaven  and  earth 
shall  pass  away,  but  His  words  shall  never  pass  away" 2  the 
dominion  of  Mohammedanism  will  pass  away ;  it  will  be 
comparatively  of  short  duration,  only  as  it  were  for  five 
months,  like  that  of  the  swarms  of  real  locusts,  which  appear 
and  ravage  the  earth  for  a  time,  and  are  then  swept  away  by 
the  wind  into  the  sea.3 

But  perhaps  something  else  may  be  discovered  here  in 
this  term  of  five  months.  The  month  is  measured  by  the 
changes  of  the  moon;  the  crescent  moon  is  the  symbol  of 
Islam.  Some  have  said  that  it  was  adopted  from  the  ancient 
Byzantium,  in  1453,  when  it  was  taken  by  the  Turks ;  but 
it  seems  to  have  been  borne  on  the  Moslem  escutcheon 
before  that  time.4    Perhaps,  then,  it  may  be  conjectured 

1  Eev.  xiv.  G.  2  Matt.  y.  35. 

3  Cp.  Joel  ii.  20 ;  Exod.  x.  19. 

4  Dean  Milman  speaks  of  it  as  such,  Latin  Christianity,  book  iv. 
chap.  ii.  pp.  220,  223,  ed.  1872;  and  so  Dr.  I.  M.  Arnold,  Islam, 
p.  179;  Mr.  Hallam,  chap.  vi. ;  and  see  Mr.  Arthur  J.  Evans,  Tour 
through  Bosnia,  1876,  p.  219,  who  says,  "  The  Osmanlis  must  have 
borrowed  the  device  from  their  Saracenic  predecessors." 


90  Miscellanies. 

* 

that  a  month  here  represents  the  duration  of  a  Moslem 
dynasty,  and  fi ve  months  may  perhaps  mean  five _  dynasties. 
And  when  we  come  to  examine  the  succession  of  Islam 
dynasties,  as  traced  by  the  most  accredited  authors,  from 
the  time  of  Mohammed  to  the  present  day,  we  find  that  they 
&rejive.  We  are  now  living  in  the  fifth  dynasty  ;  it  may  be 
the  last.5 

The  first  dynasty  consisted  of  four  Caliphs,  successors  of 
Mohammed  at  Medina,  who  were  elective ;  the  second 
dynasty  was  that  of  the  Ommiades  at  Damascus,  who  were 
hereditary  ;  the  third  was  that  of  the  Abbassides  at  Bagdad; 
the  fourth  was  that  at  Cairo,6  in  Egypt ;  the  fifth  was  that 
of  the  Ottomans,  who  now  rule  at  Constantinople. 

It  is  further  added  in  this  prophecy,  that  these  "  locusts 
have  a  Icing  over  them."  Their  form  of  government  is 
monarchical.  This  is  very  remarkable.  For  it  is  expressly 
specified  in  Scripture  as  a  characteristic  of  natural  locusts 
that  "  they  have  no  Jang."  "  The  locusts,"  says  Solomon, 
"have  no  Icing;  yet  •  go  they  forth  in  bands." 7  Again, 
therefore,  we  see  that  these  locusts  of  the  Apocalypse  are 
not  natural,  but  typical.  They  have  a  Icing.  Now,  it  is  obser- 
vable, that  for  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  years  the  Moham- 
medans have  always  had  a  king.  They  have  had  changes  of 
dynasties,  as  we  have  seen;  their  caliphs  have  been  murdered, 
have  committed  suicide,  have  been  deposed,  aud  been 
succeeded  by  infants  or  idiots.  This  continuance  of  a 
Monarchy  among  them  is  more  singular,  because  since  the 
Crescent  passed  to  the  dynasty  of  the  Ottoman  Turks  at  the 
close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  sovereign  is  not  a  caliph, 

5  Let  me  refer  to  the  valuable  work  of  31.  D'  Ohsson,  who  was  a  native 
of  Constantinople,  and  writes  from  intimate  knowledge  of  the  history 
of  the  Ottoman  empire,  in  his  Tableau  General  de  l'Empire  Othoman, 
torn.  i.  p.  231,  Paris,  1778 ;  see  also  D'Serbelot,  Bibliotheque  Orientale, 
torn.  i.  pp.  4,  499  ;  Hallam,  ii.  chap.  vi.  p.  581. 

''  The  Fatimites,  of  which  Gibbon  says,  chap.  lvii.  p.  1061,  ed.  London, 
1 830,  "  The  revolution  which  transferred  the  sceptre  from  the  Abbas- 
sides (of  Bagdad)  to  the  Fatimites  (in  Egypt),  was  a  benefit  rather  than 
an  injury  to  the  Holy  Land ;"  but  it  was  recovered  by  the  Abbassides- 
See  Gibbon,  chap.  lis.  p.  1097  ;  and  D'  Ohsson,  i.  p.  232;  and  D'Hcrbelot, 
p.  4.    The  Ottoman  dynasty  dates  from  a.d.  1289 ;  ibid,  ii,  p.  209. 

'  Prov.  xxx.  27. 


Mohammedanism  always  Monarchical.       g  i 


i.  c.  a  successor  of  Mohammed,  except  by  a  legal  fiction.  As 
the  historian  Gibbon  observes/  "  the  Ottomans  (or  Turks) 
cannot  style  themselves,  like  the  Arabian  caliphs,  the 
descendants  or  successors  of  the  (so-called)  apostle  of  God 
(Mohammed)  ;  but  their  sacred  and  indefeasible  right  was 
soon  and  unalterably  implanted  in  the  minds  of  their  sub- 
jects. A  weak  or  vicious  sultan  may  be  deposed  and 
strangled,  but  his  inheritance  devolves  to  an  infant  or  an 
idiot ;  nor  has  the  most  daring  rebel  presumed  to  ascend  the 
throne  of  his  lawful  sovereign.  While  the  foremost  dynasties 
of  Asia  have  been  continually  subverted  by  a  crafty  vizier  in 
the  palace,  or  by  a  successful  general  in  the  camp,  the 
Ottoman  succession  has  been  confirmed  by  the  practice  of 
five  centuries,  and  is  incorporated  with  the  vital  principle  of 
the  Turkish  nation."  The  Mohammedans  have  had  innume- 
rable revolutions  in  these  twelve  centuries,  since  the  time  of 
Mohammed,  but  they  have  never  had  a  republic ;  they  have 
never  had  an  aristocracy;  they  have  never  had  an  oligarchy; 
they  have  alivays  had  a  king  ;  they  have  always  had  a  caliph 
— which  (as  I  have  said)  means  successor — successor  of  their 
Prophet  Mohammed,  and  now  also  called  Sultan,  or  Lord. 
Thus  the  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled. 

What  else  does  this  prophecy  say  ?  It  declares  that, 
though  they  shall  ever  have  a  king,  though  a  Monarchy  is 
guaranteed  to  them  as  long  as  they  exist,  yet  their  king  is 
not  what  kings  ought  to  be,  a  father  of  his  country,  a  parent 
of  his  people.  No  ;  his  name  is  declared  here  by  St.  John 
to  be  destroyer,  "in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  Abaddon,  and 
in  the  Greek,  Apollyon  so  that  Jew  and  Gentile,  that  is, 
the  whole  world,  may  read  his  title  written  by  the  hand  of 
God  as  destroyer,  exterminator  of  men.9 

What  shall  we  say  here  ?  Mohammed  represented  him- 
self as  the  apostle  of  God  and  saviour,  sent  by  Him  to  preach 
the  truth,  and  to  declare  the  way  of  salvation.  All,  he  says, 
are  doomed  to  destruction  who  do  not  hearken  unto  me,  and 
who  do  not  receive  the  revelation  of  the  Koran  as  the  final 

s  Chap.  lxv.  p.  1193. 

IJ  In  the  Vulgate  translation  of  the  Apocalypse  the  word  here  is  Exler- 
minans,  in  the  Arabic  Version  it  is  Shedder  ofbluvd. 


92 


Miscellanies. 


revelation  of  God.  Bat  while  he  thus  proclaims  himself  the 
apostle  and  saviour  of  mankind,  he  denies  in  that  book  the 
doctrine  of  the  Blessed  Trinity ; 1  he  does  despite  to  that 
only  Name  given  unto  men  whereby  they  may  be  saved/  the 
Name  of  Christ;  he  denies  Christ's  Godhead;3  he  rejects 
Christ's  Divine  Sonship ; 4  he  rejects  that  in  which  the 
Apostle  gloried,  namely,  the  Cross  of  Christ;  and  he  affirms, 
with  some  blasphemers  of  old,  preaching  the  doctrine  of 
antichrist,  that  Jesus  was  not  crucified  for  us,5  but  that 
another  suffered  in  his  stead.  And  thus  he  by  these  deadly 
doctrines,  may  be  said  to  appropriate  to  himself  the  name  of 
Destroyer  and  Exterminator  in  that  book,  the  Koran,  which 
he  has  delivered  to  be  read 6  and  revered  by  all. 

He  does  it  also  in  express  terms.  Hear  his  own  words, 
written  in  the  Koran.  In  chapter  iv.  he  says,  "  Fight  for 
the  religion  of  God.  Excite  the  faithful  to  war."  In  the 
next  chapter,  "  0  true  believers,  take  not  the  Jews  or 
Christians  for  your  friends.  Whoso  among  you  taketh  them 
for  his  friends,  he  is  surely  one  of  them.  God  will  love 
those  who  are  humble  towards  the  believers,  and  are  severe 
to  the  unbelievers."  And  in  chapter  viii.  God  is  introduced 
as  saying,  "  I  will  cast  a  dread  into  the  hearts  of  the 
unbelievers "  (that  is,  all  who  are  not  Mohammedans)  ; 
"  therefore,  strike  off  their  heads,  and  strike  off  all  the  ends  of 
their  fingers.  This  shall  they  suffer,  because  they  have 
resisted  God  and  His  apostle  (Mohammed) ;  and  whosoever 
shall  oppose  God  and  His  apostle,  verily  God  will  be  severe 
in  punishing  him."  And  again,  chapter  ix.,  "  Fight  against 
them  loho  believe  not  in  God,  and  profess  not  the  true 
religion."  And  in  the  same  chapter  he  promises  infinite 
felicity  in  paradise  to  those  who  wage  war  against  the 
unbelievers ;  and  he  ends  the  chapter  with  these  words : 
"  O  true  believers,  wage  war  against  such  of  the  unbelievers 
as  are  near  you,  and  let  them  find  severity  in  you,  and  know 
that  God  is  with  those  who  fear  Him."    And  again,  in 

1  Koran,  chaps,  iv.  v.  2  Acts  iv.  12. 

J  Koran,  chap.  v.  4  Ibid,  chaps,  iv.  ix. 

4  Ibid,  chaps,  iii.  iv. 

5  The  word  Koran  signifies  ivhat  is  read. 


Character  of  Mohammedan  rule. 


93 


chapter  xlvii.,  he  says,  "  When  yc  encounter  the  unbelievers, 
strike  off  their  heads,  until  yc  have  made  a  great  slaughter 
among  them  ;  He  commandeth  you  to  fight  His  battles,  which 
if  ye  do,  He  will  lead  you  into  paradise,  of  which  He  hath 
told  you."  And  then  he  describes,  in  glowing  language, 
the  joys  of  paradise;7  and  concludes  the  chapter  with 
repeating  the  conimaud,  and  asks  of  his  followers  a  question, 
doubtless  in  the  hearts  of  many  among  them  at  this  time : 
"  Hath  not  a  Sura  3  been  revealed  commanding  war  against 
the  infidels  ?  and  when  the  command  is  firmly  established, 
if  the  believers  give  credit  unto  God,  it  will  be  better  for  them. 
Were  ye,  therefore,  ready,  if  ye  had  been  put  in  authority, 
to  commit  outrages  in  the  earth,  and  to  violate  the  ties  of 
hlood  ?  "  And  he  denounces  vengeance  against  those  who 
do  not  fulfil  the  command  :  "  0  true  believers,"  he  exclaims, 
"  obey  God,  and  obey  His  apostle,  and  render  not  your 
works  of  no  effect.  Faint  not,  therefore,  neither  invite  your 
enemies  to  peace,  while  ye  are  the  superior ;  for  God  is  with 
you,  and  will  not  defraud  you  of  the  merit  of  your  works." 

May  we  not  therefore  say  that  the  Koran  is  written  in 
blood  ?  and  that  Mohammed,  who  requires  all  to  accept  that 
book  as  the  final  revelation  from  God,  superseding  the  Law 
of  Moses  and  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  does  by  that  very  com- 
mand claim  for  himself  and  for  his  successors,  who  obey  its 
precepts,  the  title  written  by  God's  hand,  to  be  recognized 
of  all,  Abaddon  and  Apollyon  (that  is,  the  destroyer)  ? 

When  also  we  trace  the  effects  of  this  teaching  in  the 
history  of  Islamism  for  more  than  twelve  hundred  years,  we 
see  that  that  history  also  is  written  in  characters  of  blood. 
Let  me  cite  the  words  of  an  author  already  quoted,  M. 
D'Ohsson,9  who,  having  passed  in  review  the  acts  of  the 
several  caliphs,  sums  up  his  narrative  as  follows  :  "  Thus  we 
see,  since  the  establishment  of  Mohammedanism,  the  entire 
East  presents  only  a  theatre  of  carnage  and  of  horror,  under 
almost  all  these  caliphs,  who  made  rivers  of  blood  to  flow 
over  these  vast  and  miserable  countries  "  (i.  245). 

7  See  also  chaps,  lv.  lvi.  for  a  description  of  the  joys  of  paradise. 

8  I.  e.  a  chapter  of  the  Koran  ;  see  Sale,  Koran,  chap.  ix. 

9  Cp.  Dr.T. P.  Hughes'  learned  "Notes  on  Mohammedism,"  1877  (Pref.). 


94 


Miscellanies. 


It  is  also  worthy  of  note,  what  is  remarked  by  an  apologist 
of  Islamism,  Mr.  Thornton/  that  the  Turkish  Sultan  has  two 
official  titles,  among  others;  one,  Zil-ullah  (or  shadow  of 
God),  the  other  Hunhiar,2  which  signifies  man-slayer  ; 
almost  identical  with  the  words  Abaddon  and  Apolhjon  in 
the  Apocalypse.  Mr.  Thornton  illustrates  this  by  saying 
that  "  the  Sultan  may  lawfully  kill  fourteen  persons  a  day 
without  assigning  a  cause  ;"  and  that  "  inasmuch  as  he  is 
supposed  to  be  invested  with  official  holiness,  as  supreme 
pontiff  {Caliph  and  Imam)  of  the  nation,  as  well  as  sovereign 
lord  (Sultan),  even  though  he  should  order  the  execution  of 
a  thousand  men  a  day,  he  is  held  irresponsible  for  the 
act."  3 

But,  after  all,  their  cruelty  to  the  bodies  of  men  is  even 
exceeded  by  that  fiend-like  ferocity  which  wars  against  the 
soul.  It  is  here  also  that  Mohammed  and  his  successors 
have  identified  themselves  with  the  Abaddon  and  the  Apolhjon 
of  the  Apocalypse.  They  have  done  the  work  of  the  Evil 
One  by  taking  up  arms  against  Christ.  They  know  Christ 
and  blaspheme  Him.  While  Christ  says,  "  He  that  hath 
the  Son  hath  life,  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  of  God  hath 
not  life,  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him ;" 4  they,  with 
the  Gospel  in  their  hands  and  professing  to  revere  it,  deny 
His  divine  Sonship  and  His  life-giving  Passion,  and,  if  they 
were  able,  they  would  erase  the  Cross  from  the  forehead  of 
Christendom,  and  would  fight  against  Christ  by  means  of 
Christians  themselves. 

Let  us  here  refer  to  the  history  of  the  Janissaries.  About 
five  centuries  ago,  as  the  historian  Gibbon  relates/  in  the 

1  Mr.  Thornton,  in  his  History  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  vol.  i.  p.  112( 
and  Br.  I.  M.  Arnold's  Islam,  p.  216,  3rd  ed.  1874. 

2  Professor  Cowell,  of  Cambridge,  informs  me  that  "Hunlear  is  a  collo- 
quial Persian  expression  for  the  Sultan  of  Turkej',"  and  Professor  Gandell, 
of  Oxford,  has  referred  me  to  Richardson's  Persian  Dictionary,  where  the 
word  "I£unkar''  is  thus  explained — "a  Killer,  a  King,  as  having  the 
power  of  life  and  death,  hence  used  as  a  title  of  the  Grand  Turk." 

3  Compare  the  records  of  Mohammedan  ferocity  in  Mr.  Eton's  Survey 
of  the  Turkish  Empire,  4th  ed.  London,  1809,  p.  18  ;  and  see  pp.  135 — 
147,  where  is  a  sketch  of  Turkish  history. 

4  John  iii.  36.  1  John  v.  12.  5  Gibbon,  chap.  lxiv.  p.  1175. 


Mohammedanism  has  enforced  Apostasy.  95 


days  of  Amurath  the  First,  the  Turks  marched  against  the 
Sclavonian  nations  between  the  Danube  and  the  Adriatic, 
especially  the  Bulgarians  and  Servians,  and  having  overrun 
those  countries  (to  cite  his  words),  "  the  Sultan  was  reminded 
that  according  to  the  Mohammedan  law  he  was  entitled  to  a 
fifth  part  of  the  spoil  and  captives,  and  he  selected  for  his 
use  the  stoutest  and  most  beautiful  of  the  Christian  youth, 
and  many  thousands  of  these  Christian  captives  were  forced 
to  apostatize,  and  were  trained  in  the  Turkish  religion  and 
arms,  and  were  consecrated  and  named  by  a  celebrated 
Dervish,  Janissaries,  or  new  soldiers"  (such  is  the  meaning  of 
the  word)  ;  "and  having  been  so  trained  they  fought  with 
the  zeal  of  proselytes  against  their  own  countrymen,  and  in 
the  battle  of  Cossova  the  league  and  independence  of  the 
Sclavonian  tribes  was  finally  crushed."  After  that  victory, 
Amurath  himself  was  slain  by  one  of  these  Servian  soldiers; 
but,  as  Gibbon6  states  in  another  place,  after  his  death  "the 
provinces  of  Thrace,  Macedonia,  Albania,  Bulgaria,  and 
Servia"  (those  countries  which  have  lately  risen  up  in  revolt 
against  the  Ottoman  power)  "  became  the  perpetual  seminary 
of  the  Turkish  army ;  and  when  the  royal  fifth  of  the  captives 
was  diminished  by  conquest,  an  inhuman  tax  of  the  fifth 
child,  or  of  every  fifth  year,  was  vigorously  levied  on  the 
Christian  families.  At  the  age  of  twelve  or  fourteen  years 
the  most  robust  youths  were  torn  from  their  parents,  their 
names  were  enrolled  in  a  book,  and  from  that  moment  they 
were  clothed,  taught,  and  maintained  for  the  public  service 
by  military  exercises,  and  were  drafted  into  the  companies 
of  the  Janissaries."  7 

The  blood  of  their  souls  cries  from  the  ground  in  Servia 
and  Bulgaria,  and  mingles  its  voice  with  that  of  their 
countrymen  who  have  recently  been  slain  by  the  sword  of 
Islam. 

"  It  would  be  impossible,"  (says  Isaac  Williams  on  the 
Apocalypse,  p.  152),  "for  any  human  writer  to  describe  the 
character,  rise,  and  spread  of  this  terrible  Apostasy  in  the 

f'  Chap.  Ixv.  p.  1193. 

7  See  also  Eton,  Turkish  Empire,  pp.  58  and  13<> ;  and  Jlcdlam,  Middle 
Ages,  ii.  19G. 


96 


Miscellanies. 


allegorical  language  of  Eastern  poetry  -with  more  force 
of  imagery,  aptness  of  delineation,  and  depth  of  colouring, 
than  it  has  been  prophetically  depicted  in  this  chapter  of  the 
Book  of  Revelation.  Such  is  Mohammedanism  when  con- 
templated in  the  mirror  of  Holy  Scripture.  It  arises  in  a 
foul  smoke  from  the  bottomless  pit,  its  effect  on  the  soul  the 
undying  worm,  and  itself  is  the  work  of  the  destroyer." 

But  a  more  joyful  sound  is  now  heard.  Look  again  at  the 
prophecy  in  the  Apocalypse.  The  divine  seer,  St.  John, 
foresees  and  foretells  the  downfall  of  this  terrible  power  :  he 
says,  "  One  woe  is  past*'  or,  literally,  "  the  first  woe  passed 
away  "  8  (aT7fj\8ev).  St.  John  calls  Mohammedanism  a  woe; 
and  he  describes  its  disappearance  as  sadden.  This  is 
probable  from  the  character  of  Islamism.  It  is  founded  on 
the  doctrine  of  fatalism :  and  this  doctrine  produces  two 
opposite  results — presumption  and  despair.  As  long  as 
Mohammedanism  is  victorious,  it  is  fierce  and  almost 
irresistible ;  but  when  it  receives  a  check,  it  is  stunned  and 
paralyzed,  and  sinks  into  despondency.9  The  name  Moslem 
signifies  one  who  is  resigned  to  his  destiny.  Islamism  means 
resignation.  This  fatalism  is  consecrated  by  certain  words 
which  are  ever  in  the  hearts  and  on  the  lips  of  true  Mussul- 
mans,1 talidir  or  kismet. 

The  prophecy  seems  to  foretell  by  the  word  used  (Rev. 
ix.  12)  that  Mohammedanism  will  pass  away,  not  so  much 
by  violent  destruction  from  without,  but  by  an  internal 
collapse,  like  the  flowing  away  of  a  stream. 

Circumstances  seem  to  intimate  this.  A  little  more  than 
fifty  years  ago,  the  armed  forces  of  Egypt,  under  Mehemet 
Ali  and  Ibrahim  Pasha  rushed  to  the  standard  of  the  Sultan, 
and  crushed  the  insurrection  in  Greece.  But  now  Egypt  is 
still,  and  she  recently  gazed  with  indifference  and  com- 
placency on  the  ebbing  stream  of  evanescent  Islamism. 
Again,  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  some  of  the  greatest 

s  cmi)\6ev — aorist.    Eev.  ix.  12. 

,J  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  D  Ohsson,  Empire  Othoman,  i. 
p.  168,  showing  the  effect  of  this  belief  in  predestination  not  on\y  on 
individuals,  but  on  the  public  policy  of  the  Ottomans. 

1  D'Ohsson,  p.  170. 


Prospects  of  the  Future. 


97 


Nations  of  Europe,  England  being  one,  combined  in  favour 
of  Turkey,  and  expended  immense  treasure  and  some  of 
their  best  life-blood  in  the  Crimea  in  defence  of  the 
Empire  of  the  Crescent,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  its  in- 
tegrity. But  now  at  a  recent  treaty,  that  of  Berlin,  the 
belligerent  parties  on  both  sides  have  joined  together  in  the 
dismemberment  of  that  Empire. 

Again,  not  many  years  ago,  it  was  confidently  affirmed, 
that  if  the  Empire  of  the  Sultan  was  impaired  by  England 
the  Mohammedans  of  India  would  arise  in  insurrection 
against  us.  But  this  apprehension  has  proved  groundless. 
We  ourselves  are  taking  up  arms  against  a  Mohammedan 
power  in  Afghanistan,  and  Indian  Mohammedanism  is  calm. 

But  most  of  all,  the  inveterate  internal  corruption  of  the 
whole  Turkish  Empire,  and  the  utter  hopelessness  of  its 
recovery,  seem  to  show  that  the  prophecy  of  the  Apocalypse 
will  be  fulfilled  at  no  distant  time,  and  that,  by  a  process  of 
intestine  decay,  disorganization,  and  dissolution,  the  power 
of  Mohammedanism  will  pass  away.2 

Let  me  now  offer  some  practical  reflections. 
The  history  of  Mohammedanism   (as  foreshadowed  by 
St.  John  in  the  Apocalypse)  shows  in  a  strong  light  the  evil 
effects  of  heresy,  schism,  and  corrupt  worship  in  the  Church. 
Islamism  owes  its  origin  and  power  to  them. 

Here  then  is  a  warning  to  ourselves.  Let  us  shun  heresy, 
schism,  and  corrupt  worship,  and  let  us  resolve  by  God's 
grace  to  hold  firmly  the  true  faith,  to  adore  Him  in  purity 
and  holiness,  and  to  dwell  together  in  unity. 

Next,  the  strength  of  Mohammedanism  arose  from  those 
principles  of  good  which  it  has  in  the  midst  of  evil.  It  has 
faith  in  the  Divine  omnipotence,  omnipresence,  and  omni- 
science ;  and  it  has  acted  energetically  on  that  faith.  And 
in  this  respect  it  is  an  example  to  Christian  nations  who 
enjoy  the  blessings  of  a  purer  revelation. 

-  As  to  the  probability  of  an  external  sbock  from  tbe  North,  see 
Gibbon,  chap.  lv.  Bycaut,  State  of  the  Greek  Church,  p.  83.  Walsh, 
Journey  from  Constantinople,  p.  436,  ed.  Dublin,  1854.  Eton,  Turkish 
Empire,  p.  193.  Dollinger,  Mohammed's  Religion,  p.  146.  Dr.  J.  H. 
Newman,  "  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Turks,"  p.  272. 

VOL.  III.  H 


98 


Jl/isccllanics. 


The  reverence  and  devotion  of  the  Mussulman  is,  in  many 
respects,  a  pattern  to  us,  especially  with  regard  to  prayer. 
In  the  grey  twilight  of  the  morning  the  muezzin  mounts  the 
minaret  of  the  mosques  in  the  cities  of  the  Turkish  empire, 
and  with  a  clear  harmonious  voice  he  calls  aloud,  "  Prayer 
is  better  than  sleep  ;  come  to  the  Temple  of  Salvation."  3 
The  sound  is  repeated  five  times  every  day.  Mohammedans 
are  a  people  of  prayer.  As  soon  as  the  hour  arrives,  they 
repair  to  the  mosque,  or  rehearse  the  prayers  in  private. 
Business  is  suspended  at  the  time.  The  merchant  in  the 
bazaar,  the  traveller  in  his  journey,  the  mariner  at  sea, 
the  artisan  and  husbandman  in  their  toil,  are  seen  in  an 
attitude  of  devotion.  They  are  not  ashamed  to  pray. 
Together  with  their  stated  prayers,  they  recite  words  from 
the  Koran,  which  they  believe  to  have  come  from  heaven. 

They  never  engage  in  battle  without  prayer  for  success  ; 
and  they  never  gain  a  victory  without  thanking  God.4 

It  would  be  a  happy  thing  if  Englishmen  had  the  same 
reverence  for  the  Bible  that  Mussulmans  have  for  the  Koran; 
and  that  the  spirit  of  prayer  prevailed  with  us  as  with  them, 
and  that  we  had  the  same  faith  in  its  efficacy,  and  declared 
our  faith  as  they  do. 

And  how  blessed  is  the  thought,  that  if,  in  answer  to  our 
prayers,  and  as  a  result  of  our  Christian  example,  and  of  our 
missionary  enterprise,  it  should  please  God  in  His  infinite 
goodness  to  touch  the  hearts  of  Mohammedans,  and  if  they 
should  turn  from  the  false  prophet  to  the  True,  from  Mo- 
hammed to  Christ,  from  the  Koran  to  the  Bible,  glorious 
would  be  the  consequences.  It  would  be  the  emancipation 
of  Womanhood  in  a  large  part  of  the  world.  The  conversion 
of  Mohammedans  to  Christianity  would  be  a  reply  to  the 
scepticism  of  the  age,  and  a  new  proof  of  the  Divine  origin 
of  the  Gospel.  And  not  only  so,  but  the  accession  of  their 
energy,  and  of  their  reverential  and  religious  spirit,  and  of 
their  dutiful  obedience,  would  infuse  new  life  into  our  languid 

3  See  the  interesting  account  given  of  the  "  canonical  hours "  and 
religious  practices  of  Islamism  in  these  respects  by  D'Ohsson,  ii.  pp.  99, 
109—112,  163—166. 

4  See  D'O/issov,  ii.  253—256,  and  p.  262. 


Hopes  for  the  Eastern  Churches — Cyprus.  99 


Christianity,  and  would  kindle  throughout  Christendom  a 
new  flame  of  devotion.  And  when  the  hindrances  of  Is- 
lamism  are  removed,  we  might  hope  that,  with  the  blessing 
of  God,  the  ancient  Churches  of  the  East  would  revive  in  a 
second  spring,  and  be  restored  in  primitive  faith  and  purity. 

Then  at  Constantinople,  and  in  other  great  cities  of  the 
East,  where  the  Crescent  now  gleams,  the  Cross  of  Christ 
would  once  more  reign  supreme.  St.  Sophia  might  again 
become  a  Christian  Church.  We  might  again  see  Apostolic 
bishops  like  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  in  the  Asiatic  Churches 
of  St.  John  ;  and  a  Cyprian,  an  Athanasius,  a  Cyril,  and  an 
Augustine  in  the  cities  of  Africa ;  a  Gregory  Nazianzen  and 
a  Chrysostom  at  Constantinople;  and  we  might  be  joined 
with  them,  and  they  be  united  with  us,  in  praising  one  God 
and  Saviour,  as  citizens  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  which  is 
the  mother  of  us  all.5 

The  recent  acquisition  of  the  island  of  Cyprus  by  England 
seems  to  be  a  providential  opening  for  intercourse  of  the 
Anglican  Churches  with  the  Churches  of  the  East,*  and  for 
the  revival  of  Christianity  in  those  countries  which  were  its 
heritage  of  old,  and  for  the  conversion  of  the  votaries  of 
Islam  to  faith  in  Christ. 

Let  us,  therefore,  pray  for  that  blessed  consummation. 
"  0  merciful  God,  Who  hast  made  all  men,  and  hatest 
nothing  that  Thou  hast  made,  nor  wouldest  the  death  of  a 
sinner,  but  rather  that  he  should  be  converted  and  live ; 
have  mercy  upon  all  Jews,  Turks,  infidels,  and  heretics,  and 
take  from  them  all  ignorance,  hardness  of  heart,  and  con- 
tempt of  Thy  Word  ;  and  so  fetch  them  home,  blessed  Lord, 
to  Thy  flock,  that  they  may  be  saved  among  the  remnant  of 
the  true  Israelites,  and  be  made  one  fold  under  one  Shepherd, 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  Who  liveth  and  reigneth  with  Thee 
and  the  Holy  Spirit,  one  God,  world  without  end.  Amen." 

5  Gal.  iv.  26. 

6  The  recent  fraternal  interchange  of  kindly  offices  between  the  Bishop 
of  Gibraltar  and  the  Arch-Bishop  and  Clergy  of  Cyprus  is  a  happy  augury 
of  future  blessings. 

H  2 


THE  DECLINE  OF  MOHAMMEDANISM 


A  SIGNAL  FOR  THE  GREATER  SPREAD  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 
WHICH  WILL  BE  TO  SOME  A  WOE. 


The  decline  of  the  Mohammedan  Power  (which,  was  the 
subject  of  the  foregoing  paper),  will,  it  is  probable,  be  coin- 
cident in  time  with  a  great  extension  of  Christianity,  and 
will  conduce  to  it. 

Recent  events  in  Eastern  Europe  and  Asia — the  acquisition 
of  the  island  of  Cyprus  by  England,  opening  the  East  to 
Christian  Missions — the  military  successes  of  her  forces  in 
Xorth-Western  India,  against  a  Mohammedan  power — all 
these  seem  to  point  in  the  same  direction.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  passing  away  of  Mohammedanism  is  connected  in 
the  prophecies  of  the  Apocalypse  (in  the  same  chapter,  the 
ninth),  with  the  spread  of  the  Gospel,  which  is  there 
represented  as  following  it. 

The  former  of  these  subjects  occupies  the  first  twelve 
verses;  the  latter  is  described  in  the  remainder  of  that 
chapter. 

Both  these  topics  are  now  deservedly  arresting  public 
attention,  and  it  may  be  profitable  to  examine  those  pro- 
phecies consecutively  in  reference  to  them. 

Having  considered  the  former  prophecy  in  the  foregoing 
pages,  I  will  now  proceed  to  the  examination  of  the  latter. 

Rev.  ix.  13 — 15,  "And  the  sixth  Angel  sounded,  and 
I  heard  a  voice  from  the  four  horns  of  the  golden  altar 
which  is  before  God,  saying  to  the  sixth  Angel  which  had 
the  Trumpet,  Loose  the  Four  Angels  which  are  bound  (have 
been  bound)  in  the  great  river  Euphrates.  And  the  Four 
Angels  were  loosed,  which  were  prepared  for  an  hour  (the 


Mohammedan  decline — Spread  of  the  Gospel.  101 

hour)  and  a  day,  and  a  month,  and  a  year,  for  to  slay  the 
third  part  of  men." 

In  this  Book,  the  Book  of  Revelation,  Seven  Angels 
have  been  introduced  in  succession,  each  sounding  a 
Trumpet.  These  Seven  Trumpets  announce  successive 
divine  judgments;  and  they  end  with  the  seventh  or  Last 
Trumpet,  which  will  awaken  the  dead  from  their  graves,  and 
will  summon  the  world  to  the  Judgment- Seat  of  Christ. 

The  last  three  of  these  seven  trumpets  are  called  in  this 
book  Woe-Trumpets,  because  they  proclaim  three  judicial 
Woes,  with  which  God  will  visit  those  who  do  not  believe 
and  obey  the  Gospel. 

In  the  former  part  of  this  ninth  chapter,  the  fifth  Angel 
sounds  the  fifth  Trumpet,  which  is  the  first  of  these  three 
Woe  Trumpets. 

The  Woe  announced  by  that  Trumpet  (as  has  been  shown 
in  the  previous  paper)  was  Mohammedanism.  After  de- 
scribing the  ravages  perpetrated  by  it,  the  prophecy  foretells 
that  in  God's  time  it  will  pass  away. 

Then  the  sixth  Angel  is  introduced  sounding  the  sixth 
Trumpet. 

This  is  the  subject  before  us. 

"  The  sixth  Angel  sounded,  and  I  heard  a  voice  from  the 
four  horns  of  the  golden  altar  which  is  before  God,  saying  to 
the  sixth  Angel  which  had  the  trumpet,  Loose  the  four  Angels 
which  have  been  bound  in  (or  at)  the  great  river  Euphrates." 

The  voice  proceeds  from  the  four  horns  of  the  golden 
altar,  the  altar  of  incense  (the  type  of  prayer),  which  is  before 
God.  Therefore  this  is  a  divine  voice,  and  is  an  answer  to 
prayer. 

This  has  been  observed  by  ancient  Expositors.1  And  this 
preamble  is  tantamount  to  a  declaration  that  what  is  here 
done  in  obedience  to  this  Voice  from  the  holy  altar  is  done 
by  the  command  of  God  and  cannot  be  an  evil  act. 

The  Divine  Voice  says  to  the  sixth  Angel,  "  Loose  the 
four  Angels  which  have  been  bound  at  the  great  river 
Euphrates." 

What  are  these  Angels  ? 

1  See  Isaac  Williams  on  the  Apocalypse,  p.  1G2,  cd.  LS75. 


102 


Miscellanies. 


The  word  Angel  means  messenger,  and  Evangelinm  or 
Gospel  means  a  good  message,  a  message  of  God;  and 
wherever  the  word  Angel  is  introduced  in  Scripture,  absolutely, 
as  here,  without  any  epithet,  it  signifies  a  good  Angel,  an 
Angel  of  God.'  The  voice  from  the  golden  altar  is  a  divine 
voice,  it  speaks  to  an  Angel  who  is  a  divine  messenger  of 
God,  and  commands  him  to  loose  the  four  Angels  who  are 
also  messengers  of  God.  Therefore  the  act  here  done  is  an 
act  of  God,  working  by  His  own  agents.  This  was  the 
opinion  of  ancient  authors,  mentioned  by  one  of  the  most 
learned  Greek  Expositors,  Andreas,3  who  wrote  in  the  sixth 
or  seventh  century. 

Observe  also  these  holy  Angels  or  Messengers  who  are 
loosed  are  four.  In  the  Apocalypse  the  number  four 
symbolizes  Universality  of  space,  and  is  applied  to  the  four 
Gospels  (Evangelia),  which  are  called  the  four  living  creatures 
in  the  fourth  chapter,4  and  represent  the  living  power  of 
Evangelical  preaching  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  Globe.  In 
the  seventh  chapter  we  see  in  like  manner  four  Angels 
(vii.  1,2), and  these  are  clearly  Angels  of  God.  The  prophecy 
therefore  before  us  foretells  that  the  decline  of  the  Moham- 
medan power  will  be  followed  by  the  loosing  of  four  heavenly 
Messengers ;  in  other  words  that  it  will  be  a  signal  for  a 
diffusion  of  the  Gospel  throughout  the  world. 

This  is  also  revealed  in  another  passage  of  the  Book  of 
Revelation  which  speaks  of  the  signs  of  the  latter  days,  and 
illustrates  the  present  prophecy.  "  I  saw,"  says  St.  John 
(Rev.  xiv.  6),  "  an  Angel  flying  in  the  midst  of  heaven, 
having  the  Everlasting  Gospel  {Evangelinm)  to  preach  unto 
them  that  dwell  on  the  earth,  and  to  every  nation,  kindred, 
tongue,  and  people,  saying,  Fear  God,  for  the  hour  of  His 
judgment  is  come  an  expression,  be  it  observed,  which 
explains  the  words  in  the  present  prophecy,  viz.  "  that  the 
four  angels  have  been  prepared  for  the  hour  "  (such  is  the  true 
translation),  "  and  for  the  day/'  that  is  for  the  Day  of  Judg- 

2  This  has  heen  well  observed  here  by  Dr.  Hengstenberg. 

3  Andreas,  and  after  him  Arethas  and  (Ecumenius.  See  Dr.  Cramer's 
Catena  on  the  Apocalypse,  p.  321,  528. 

'  May  I  refer  to  my  notes  on  Rev.  iv.  6  ? 


What  is  the  meaning  of  Euphrates  ?  103 


merit.  As  our  Lord  says  "  The  word  which  I  have  spoken 
unto  you,  that  shall  judge  you  at  the  last  day"  (John  xii.  48). 

In  the  prophecy  before  us  the  Four  Angels  are  described 
as  having  been  bound  at  the  great  river  Euphrates. 

What  does  this  mean  ? 

Many  modern  Expositors,  deviating  from  the  ancient 
interpretation,5  and  marring  the  analogy  of  language  in  this 
wonderful  book  (which  is  composed  with  perfect  accuracy 
and  exquisite  precision)  imagine  that  the  word  Euphrates 
is  here  used  literally,  and  signifies  the  Eastern  river  bearing 
that  name. 

And  yet — which  is  strange — the  same  Expositors  rightly 
say  that  the  word  Babylon  (whose  river  the  Euphrates  was), 
which  is  used  six  times  in  this  book,  is  never  used  in  a  literal 
sense.  If  the  word  Euphrates  is  to  be  understood  in  this 
book  literally,  and  signifies  the  Eastern  river,  then  the  word 
Babylon,  which  was  on  the  river  Euphrates,  is  also  to  be 
understood  literally,  and  means  the  Eastern,  Assyrian,  city. 
But  this  is  impossible ;  and  these  Expositors  own  it  to  be 
out  of  the  question.  And  they  truly  say  that  the  word 
Babylon  in  the  Apocalypse  is  to  be  understood  spiritually, 
and  means  the  City  and  Church  of  Rome;  as  we  have  already 
seen  to  be  the  case.6  But  if  the  word  Babylon  is  to  be 
understood  spiritually  (as  is  certain),  then  the  word 
Euphrates,  which  was  the  river  of  Babylon,  is  no  less  surely 
to  be  understood  spiritually  also. 

And  further,  on  principles  of  analogy,  the  word  Euphrates 
here  represents  something  which  bears  the  same  relation  to 
the  spiritual  Babylon  (i.  e.  to  the  Church  of  Rome)  as  the 
literal  river  Euphrates  bore  to  the  literal  Babylon. 

The  literal  Euphrates  was  the  cause  of  the  strength  and 
the  channel  of  the  commerce  and  wealth  of  the  literal 
Babylon.7 

6  No  ancient  Expositors  (such  as  Andreas,  Arethas,  (Ecumenius  among 
the  Greeks,  or  such  as  Tychonius,  Bede,  Haymo,  Ambrosius  Ansbertus 
among  the  Latins)  interpret  Euphrates  literally.  They  suppose  it  to 
mean  the  power  of  the  spiritual  Babylon. 

6  Vol.  i.  p.  362 — 413,  where  the  meaning  of  the  name  Babylon  in  the 
Apocalypse  is  fully  discussed. 

7  See  above,  i.  437. 


io4 


Miscellanies. 


And  what,  let  us  ask,  has  been  the  cause  of  power  and 
•wealth  to  the  spiritual  Babylon  ? 

It  is  its  Papal  Supremacy.  That  Supremacy  has  been 
flowing  onward  in  a  strong,  deep,  and  wide  flood  for  many 
centuries,  and  has  been  the  means  of  the  wealth  and 
aggrandisement  of  the  Spiritual  Babylon.8 

But  what  (it  may  be  asked)  is  the  meaning  of  the  Four 
Angels  having  been  bound  at  this  river  of  the  Papal 
Euphrates,  and  being  now  loosed  ? 

The  answer  is  easy.  For  many  centuries  the  Gospel  has 
been  bound  as  a  captive  at  Rome.  As  Israel  of  old  was 
bound  as  a  captive  at  the  literal  Euphrates,  the  waters  of 
Babylon,  and  hung  up  its  harp  on  the  willows  there,8  so  the 
Christian  Church,  with  the  Scriptures  in  her  hands,  has  been 
bound  as  a  captive  on  the  banks  of  the  Papal  Babylon.  Do 
you  ask  a  proof  of  this  ?  Take  one  or  two  out  of  many. 
Although  Rome  calls  herself  the  Holy  City,  the  Centre  of 
Unity,  "  the  Mother  and  Mistress  of  all  Churches,"  and 
although  it  is  the  special  duty  of  a  Church  to  diffuse  God's 
Word,  yet  not  a  single  copy  of  the  original  Hebrew  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  ever  been  printed  in  the  city  of  Rome  ; 
and  not  a  single  copy  of  the  Greek  original  of  the  New 
Testament  was  printed  in  the  city  of  Rome  for  four  centuries 
and  more  after  the  invention  of  Printing.  Both  Testaments 
were  kept  bound  in  prison  at  the  Euphrates  of  the  Papal 
Babylon.  It  is  doubtful  whether  a  single  copy  of  any 
Translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  into  any  modern  language 
has  ever  issued  from  the  Papal  Press  in  the  City  of  Rome. 
By  the  fourth  rule  of  the  Roman  "  Index  Expurgatorius," 
the  liberty  to  read  the  Bible  is  flatly  denied  to  all  except  under 
very  strict  conditions  which  almost  amount  to  a  prohibition.1 
And  the  Papal  Bull  Unigenitns  (a.d.  1713)  condemned 
the  proposition  "  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  were  written 
for  all,  and  ought  to  be  read  by  all." 

8  The  word  Euphrates  has  the  same  spiritual  meaning  in  another 
passage  of  the  Apocalypse.  Rev.  xvi.  12.  Ma}-  I  again  refer  to  my 
notes  in  proof  of  this  ? 

9  See  Psalm  cxxxvii.  1 — 8. 

1  Regulae  Indicis  SS.  Synodi  Tridentina?  jussu  editse. 


The  Four  Angels ',  bound  at  the  Eiiphrates.  105 

Thus  the  four  Angels  have  been  bound  as  prisoners  at 
the  great  river,  the  Papal  Euphrates. 

Thus  also  Papal  Rome  has  dealt  worse  with  God's  "Word 
than  Pagan  Rome  did.  Though  Pagan  Rome  bound  the 
Apostles,  it  placed  no  restrictions  on  the  circulation  of  their 
Epistles  or  Gospels,  so  that  St.  Paul  writing  from  Rome 
itself  was  able  to  say  "  the  Word  of  God  has  not  been 
bound"  (2  Tim.  ii.  9). 

By  the  good  Providence  of  God  a  greater  freedom  is  now 
about  to  be  given  to  the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures,  by 
the  passing  away  of  the  Mohammedan  Power  in  the  East. 
For,  let  us  remember  that  wherever  the  Moslem  rule  is 
dominant  no  Church  of  Christ  is  permitted  to  be  built.2 
And  by  a  remarkable  coincidence  a  similar  emancipation  has 
by  God's  mercy  been  effected  for  His  Word  in  the  West, 
especially  at  Rome.  Since  the  taking  of  Rome  by  the 
forces  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  King  of  Italy,  on  Sept.  20, 1870, 
and  the  weakening  of  the  temporal  power  of  Rome,  Bibles 
in  the  vernacular  tongue  may  now  be  freely  circulated  in 
that  country.  Truly  we  may  say  that  the  four  Angels,  which 
for  many  centuries  had  been  bound  as  captives  at  the  river 
Euphrates,  have  now  been  loosed. 

Here,  however,  it  may  be  said,  Be  it  so,  but  is  not  the 
free  circulation  of  God's  Word  an  inestimable  blessing  ? 
How  is  this  reconcilable,  with  the  name  given  to  the  sixth 
trumpet  in  the  chapter  before,  which  is  called  a  Trumpet  of 
Woe  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  is ;  Every  gift  of  God, 
which  is  a  blessing  to  those  who  thankfully  receive  it,  is  also 
a  ivoe  to  those  ivho  reject  it.  And  the  greater  the  blessing  is 
to  the  one,  the  greater  the  woe  is  to  the  other. 

Observe  that  these  last  Trumpets  are  introduced  with  the 
solemn  preamble,  "  Woe,  Woe,  Woe  to  the  inhabiters  of  the 
earth!"  (Rev.  viii.  13.)  Remark  those  words,  "the  inhabiters 
of  the  earth,"  (this  is  the  phrase  in  the  Apocalypse  for 
worldly  men ;  those  who  are  "  of  the  earth  earthy,"  those 
who  have  not  their  "conversation  in  heaven,"  Phil.  hi.  20)  ; 

2  The  Hidayah  declares  "  The  construction  of  churches  in  Muslim 
territory  is  unlawful."  See  the  interesting  and  instructive  work,  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  T.  P.  Hughes,  Notes  on  Mohammedanism,  p.  210,  2nd  ed.  1877. 


io6 


Miscellanies. 


"  by  reason  of  the  other  voices  of  the  trumpet  of  the  three 
Angels,  which  are  yet  to  sound." 

Observe  also  that  in  this  Book  the  Seventh  Trumpet, 
which  announces  the  Resurrection  of  the  Dead  and  the 
future  Judgment,  is  called  a  Woe,  the  third  Woe.  And  yet 
what  greater  blessing  can  be  imagined  to  the  righteous  than 
the  Resurrection  of  their  bodies  from  their  graves  ?  It  will 
be  the  consummation  of  their  bliss,  and  bring  them  to 
everlasting  life  and  glory  in  heaven.  But  it  will  be  a  terrible 
Woe  to  the  Wicked.  It  speaks  of  "  Come,  ye  blessed"  to 
the  one,  but  it  speaks  also  of  "  Depart  from  Me,  ye  cursed," 
to  the  other.  And  therefore  the  sounding  of  the  Seventh 
Trumpet,  the  Trumpet  of  Resurrection  and  Judgment,  is 
called  the  third  or  last  Woe.  Indeed  the  characteristic 
attribute  of  all  the  Trumpets  of  the  Apocalypse  is  that  they 
warn  a  careless  and  godless  world  of  the  punitive  character 
of  God's  visitations. 

But  it  may  be  said,  that  the  figurative  imagery  of  this 
present  prophecy  is  too  terrible  to  be  applicable  to  Holy 
Scripture.  It  displays  to  us  the  four  Angels  as  having  an 
enormous  army,  two  hundred  millions  of  horses,  and  horse- 
men riding  upon  them,  clad  in  breastplates  of  fire  and 
jacinth  and  brimstone ;  and  the  heads  of  the  horses  are  as 
the  heads  of  lions,  and  out  of  their  mouths  issue  fire  and 
smoke  and  brimstone ;  and  by  these  three  plagues 3  the  third 
part  of  men  is  killed,  literally  the  third  part  of  the  men  (the 
icorldlings  who  are  the  subject  of  the  prophecy)  is  killed  by 
the  fire  and  smoke  and  brimstone  which  issue  out  of  their 
mouths,  for  their  power  is  in  their  mouth  and  in  their  tails, 
for  their  tails  are  like  unto  serpents,  and  they  have  heads, 
and  with  them  they  do  hurt. 

Can  this  be  applicable  to  Holy  Scripture  ? 

To  this  question  it  may  be  replied,  that  this  imagery,  which 
at  first  may  stagger  us,  does  in  fact  prove  that  the  interpreta- 
tion, which  has  now  been  given,  is  the  true  one.  It  may 
be  taken  as  a  general  rule,  that  there  is  scarcely  a  difficult 
passage  in  the  Apocalypse  which  is  not  made  easy  by  some 
other  place  in  the  same  book ;  and  that  there  is  hardly  an 
'  This  is  the  reading  of  the  best  manuseripts. 


The'  Second  Woe'  twice  described  in  the  Apocalypse.  107 


obscure  passage  iu  the  Apocalypse  which  is  not  made  clear 
by  some  other  place  in  it. 

Observe,  first,  that  these  horsemen  led  by  the  Four  Angels 
are  said  to  hurt,  i.  e.  to  punish  the  wicked;  but  this  is  also 
said  of  the  Four  Angels,  who  are  God's  angels  in  the  seventh 
chapter ;  to  them  "  it  is  given  to  hurt  the  earth,"  that  is, 
earthly-minded  men  (Rev.  vii.  1,  2). 

Observe,  secondly,  that  this  prophecy  of  the  sixth  trumpet 
is  called  the  Second  Woe.  And  now  if  we  turn  to  another 
passage  in  this  same  book,  the  eleventh  chapter,  we  find  that 
the  vision  which  is  revealed  there,  is  also  called  the  Second 
Woe  (ver.  1  i) .  In  that  eleventh  chapter  we  have  a  parallel 
visions  and  that  parallel  vision  explains  the  present  one. 

These  parallels  are  of  great  use  in  the  Apocalypse,  like  the 
parallels  in  the  Book  of  Daniel ;  for  example,  the  fourfold 
image  in  the  second  chapter  of  Daniel  representing  the  same 
thing  (with  different  features)  as  the  four  beasts  in  the 
seventh  chapter  of  the  same  book. 

So  in  the  Apocalypse  we  have  two  parallel  visions,  each  of 
which  is  called  the  Second  Woe  ;  see  xi.  14,  compared  with 
ix.  12,  13,  which  speaks  of  the  passing  away  of  the  first  Woe 
and  the  succession  of  the  second  Woe. 

In  one  of  these  two  parallel  visions  (that  in  the  eleventh 
chapter)  the  vision  of  the  Two  Witnesses,  which  are  clearly 
God's  Witnesses,  and  which  probably  represent  the  Two 
Testaments,4  and  at  any  rate  display  the  power  of  the 
preaching  of  God's  Word,  we  read  that  out  of  their  mouth 
(i.  e.  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Witnesses)  proceedeth  fire  and 
devoureth  their  enemies,  and  these  two  prophets  tormented 
them  that  dwell  on  the  earth,  and  they  have  power  to  smite 
the  earth  with  all  plagues,  and  if  any  man  will  hurt  them 
he  must  in  this  manner  be  hilled. 

This  imagery  is  very  like  that  of  the  horses  in  the  army 
of  the  four  Angels  in  the  vision  before  us ;  and  shows  that 
we  ought  not  to  be  surprised  that  the  power  and  work  of 
God's  Word  should  be  described  by  terrible  imagery  of  fire 
and  smoke  and  brimstone  devouring  its  enemies,  in  the  pro- 
phecy before  us. 

4  May  I  refer  to  my  Commentary  on  Rev.  xi.  ? 


ioS 


Miscellanies. 


Is  it  wonderful,  that  tlie  preaching  of  God's  Word  to 
those  who  will  not  receive  it  should  be  called  a  Woe  ?  This 
is  the  language  which  Christ  Himself  used  concerning  His 
own  Word,  when  He  began  to  upbraid  the  cities  to  which 
He  had  preached,  and  which  did  not  repent  (Matt.  xi.  20). 
"Woe  unto  thee,  Chorazin ! "  (He  said)  "Woe  unto  thee,  Beth- 
saida !  for  if  the  works  which  were  done  in  you  had  been  done 
in  Tyre  and  Sidon,  they  would  have  repented  long  ago  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes.  It  shall  be  more  tolerable  for  Tyre 
and  Sidon  at  the  day  of  judgment  than  for  you."  And  eight 
times  He  denounced  Woe  on  those  who  would  not  hearken 
to  Him  (Matt.  xxii.  13 — 89).  "  Every  soul  which  will  not 
hear  Him,  will  be  destroyed  "  (Acts  iii.  23). 

If  Christ,  the  Incarnate  Word,  was  a  Woe  to  the  im- 
penitent, is  it  strange  that  the  written  Word,  and  the  word 
preached  should  be  a  Woe  also  ?  Is  not  this  what  St.  Paul 
says  ?  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  is  a  savour  of  life  unto 
life  unto  those  that  receive  it,  but  is  also  a  savour  of  death 
unto  death  unto  them  that  reject  it  (2  Cor.  ii.  10). 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  the  details  of  the  prophecy  before 
us.  This  Evangelical  Army  is  a  superhuman  one — it  is 
divine.  It  is  reckoned  at  two  hundred  millions  of  horsemen. 
Is  this  an  exaggeration  ?  No.  Even  at  the  present  time 
our  English  Societies  speak  of  millions  of  copies  of  the  Bible 
disseminated  by  them  throughout  the  World/ 

But  to  proceed.  The  horsemen  in  the  vision  have  breast- 
plates of  fire.  Yes ;  and  is  not  fire  commonly  ascribed  to 
God's  Word  ?  "  The  Lord  will  come  with  fire,  and  with  His 
chariots  like  a  whirlwind,  ....  and  His  rebuke  with  flames  of 
fire  "  (Isa.  lxvi.  15).  "I  will  make  My  words  in  Thy  mouth 
fire"  says  God  to  Jeremiah  (Jer.  v.  15),  "and  this  people 
wood,  and  it  shall  devour  them."  In  the  vision  of  Ezekiel 
displaying  the  Almighty  enthroned  on  His  chariot  of  the 

5  In  one  single  year  (1877)  one  Society,  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge,  issued  183,518  Bibles,  and  65,592  New  Testaments. 
In  one  year,  ending  March  31,  1877,  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society  issued  from  London  698,130  Bibles  and  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ;  788,492  copies  of  New  Testament  and  parts,  and  New  Testament 
with  Psalms ;  on  the  Continent,  &c,  304,890  Bibles,  &c,  and  878,930 
New  Testaments  &c.    Total,  2,670,742. 


Terrible  power  of  God's  Word.  109 

four  Living  Creatures  which  represent  the  fourfold  Gospel, 
flames  of  Jive  issue  from  them,  and  the  sound  of  a  great  host, 
(reminding  us  of  the  Army  in  the  prophecy  before  us  in  the 
Apocalypse)  and  coals  of  fire  are  taken  therefrom  and  are 
cast  on  the  city  (Bzek.  i.  and  x.).  The  imagery  of  the 
present  prophecy  is  also  illustrated  by  the  missionary  work 
of  Moses,  punishing  Egypt  with  fire  and  other  plagues ;  and 
by  the  work  of  Elijah  calling  fire  from  heaven  on  his  enemies. 
Even  Christ  Himself  says,  "  I  am  come  to  send  fire  on  earth, 
and  a  sword."  (Matt.  x.  34.  Luke  xii.  49.)  And,  as 
has  been  already  observed,  the  Two  Witnesses  which  are 
God's  Witnesses  to  the  World  (probably  the  Two  Testa- 
ments), are  represented  as  smiting  the  earth  with  plagues, 
and  it  is  added,  that  if  any  one  will  hurt  them,  fire  proceedeth 
out  of  their  mouth,  and  devoureth  their  enemies ;  and  that 
vision  is  called  the  second  Woe,  as  this  is. 

Again,  the  horsemen  are  described  in  the  vision  before  us 
as  clothed  in  jacinth.  Let  us  remember  that  this  is  a  sacred 
colour,  as  is  well  known  to  all  careful  readers  of  the 
Pentateuch  (see  Exod.  xxv.  5,  and  passim  in  Exod.  xxvi. 
and  following  chapters).  The  prophecy  here  also  speaks  of 
horses  with  heads  like  those  of  lions,  and  it  speaks  also  of 
destruction  coming  forth  out  of  their  mouths.  All  these 
images  are  applied  to  Christ  Himself  in  the  Apocalypse. 
He  is  the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  (Rev.  v.  5,  cp.  x.  3). 
And  one  of  the  four  Gospels  is  compared  to  a  lion  (Rev. 
iv.  7).  Two  of  Christ's  Apostles  were  named  by  Him 
Boanerges  or  sons  of  thunder,  and  the  mighty  men  of 
David  are  described  as  having  faces  like  lions  "  (1  Chron. 
xii.  8). 

And  as  to  the  horses,  remember  that  Christ  is  revealed  in 
this  book  as  the  rider  on  the  white  horse  (Rev.  vi.  2;  xix.  11), 
and  His  Armies  follow  Him  on  white  horses  ;  and  He  is 
displayed  as  exercising  a  terrible  power  in  His  victorious 
career.  His  enemies  are  killed  by  the  sword  of  Him  who 
sitteth  on  the  horse,  by  the  sword  that  proceedeth  out  of  His 
mouth  (Rev.  xix.  21),  and  they  are  consumed  by  fire  and 
brimstone  (Rev.  xiv.  10;  xix.  11),  and  the  carnage  is  described 
by  an  awful  comparison,  as  reaching  even  to  the  bridles  of 


1 10  Miscellanies. 


the  horses  (xiv.  20).  The  Old  Testament  supplies  similar 
imagery.  "  Thou  didst  ride,  O  Lord/'  says  Habakkuk 
(Habak.  iii.  8,  9),  "  upon  Thine  horses  and  Thy  chariots  of 
salvation.    Thy  bow  was  made  naked,  even  Thy  Word" 

Nor  is  it  surprising  that  this  Evangelical  army  should  be 
compared  here  to  serpents.  In  the  Old  Testament  the  Rods 
of  Moses  and  Aaron  became  serpents  (Exod.  iv.  3 ;  vii. 
9,  10,  15).  Christ  Himself  was  symbolized  by  a  serpent 
(Num.  xxi.  8,  9.  John  iii.  14).  God  is  revealed  in  Scripture 
as  sending  serpents  to  destroy  those  who  rebelled  against 
His  Word  (Num.  xxi.  G,  7),  and  He  says  by  the  prophet 
Jeremiah  (Jei\  viii.  17),  "Behold,  I  will  send  serpents,  cocka- 
trices, among  you,  which  will  not  be  charmed,  and  they  shall 
bite  you,  saith  the  Lord."  The  Word  of  God  is  like  the 
Rod  of  Moses  and  of  Aaron.  It  is  powerful  to  save  all  true 
Israelites,  but  it  becomes  a  serpent  and  devours  the  rods  of 
those  who  reject  it  (Exod.  vii.  9 — 12).  It  recoils  with 
punitive  power  on  the  ungodly,  and  has  a  sting  of  death  for 
the  impenitent ;  as  the  Apostle  says,  "  The  sting  of  death  is 
sin;  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the  law"  (1  Cor.  xv.  5). 
And  Christ  says,  "  If  I  had  not  come  and  spoken  to  them, 
they  had  not  had  sin,  but  now  they  have  no  cloke  for  their 
sin"  (John  xv.  22).  By  their  unbelief  His  Word  became 
to  them  a  woe.  In  the  words  of  the  Psalmist  and  of  the 
Apostle,  "  Their  table  became  a  snare  to  them  and  a  trap, 
and  those  things  which  should  have  been  for  their  wealth 
became  an  occasion  of  falling  "  (Ps.  lxix.  22,  23.  Rom.  xi.  9). 
"  The  Word  which  I  have  spoken  to  you,"  says  Christ,  "  that 
shall  judge  you  at  the  last  Day"  (John.  xii.  48).  It  will  arm 
Satan  himself  against  those  who  have  rejected  the  Gospel 
of  Christ.  It  will  become  a  serpent  of  death  to  all  who 
despise  Him  who  is  the  Life. 

Is  there  anything  strange  in  this  ?  Does  it  not  represent 
the  law  of  God's  dealings  with  men  ?  The  things  of  God 
are  to  us  as  we  use  them;  either  for  life  or  for  death.  The 
waters  of  the  Flood  buoyed  up  the  ark,  but  they  drowned 
the  wicked.  The  Manna  in  the  wilderness — the  type  of 
Christ — fed  the  faithful  for  forty  years,  but  to  those  who 
were  disobedient  it  bred  worms  and  stank  (Exod.  xvi.  20). 


Double  edge  of  Divine  tilings. 


1  1 1 


The  ark  of  tho  covenant  was  to  all  faithful  Israelites  the 
Throne  of  God's  Presence  and  Mercy,  but  the  same  ark 
brought  wrath  to  His  enemies  the  Philistines,  and  shame  to 
their  idol  Dagon;  and  punishment  to  the  men  of  Bethshemesh, 
and  death  to  Uzzah ;  although  it  was  a  blessing  to  the  house 
of  the  faithful  Obed  Edom  and  to  the  family  of  David  in  Sion. 

In  like  manner  the  ancient  Church  of  God,  Jerusalem, 
was  "  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  "  to  all  true  Israelites,  but 
to  her  enemies  God  says  by  the  prophet  Zechariah  (Zech. 
xii.  2,  3,  6),  "  I  will  make  Jerusalem  a  cup  of  trembling  to 
all  who  besiege  her,  and  a  burdensome  stone  to  them ;  and 
all  who  burden  themselves  with  her  shall  be  cut  to  pieces, 
and  I  will  make  the  governors  of  Judah  like  a  hearth  of  fire 
among  the  wood,  and  like  a  torch  of  fire  in  a  sheaf,  and 
they  shall  devour  them  "  (cp.  Obadiah  18).  And  Christ 
Himself,  our  loving  Saviour  and  adorable  Redeemer, — Who  in 
His  infinite  mercy  came  down  from  His  throne  of  heavenly 
glory  and  became  Man  for  our  sakes,  and  poured  out  His 
life-blood  for  us  on  the  Cross  to  save  us  from  death,  and  to 
give  us  eternal  life  and  glory, — He,  even  He,  may  become  to 
us  through  our  hardness  of  heart  our  most  terrible  Enemy. 
He  is  the  true  Corner  Stone,  elect,  precious,  and  whoever 
believes  in  Him  and  builds  in  faith  and  love  upon  Him, 
shall  be  sa.ved ;  but  Christ,  who  is  the  corner  stone,  may 
become  by  our  sin  a  stumbling  stone  and  rock  of  offence,  or 
in  the  prophet's  words  "  a  gin  and  a  snare,  and  many  shall 
stumble  and  fall  thereby,  and  be  broken  and  snared  and 
taken"  (Isa.  viii.  14.  Rom.  ix.  33.  1  Pet.  ii.  3).  Let  us 
remember  His  words,  "  Whoso  shall  fall  on  this  stone  shall 
be  broken,  but  on  whomsoever  it  shall  fall,  it  will  grind  him 
to  powder"  (Matt.  xxi.  44.  Luke  xx.  18).  Christ  is  infinite 
in  love  to  all  who  repent,  believe,  and  obey  Him ;  but  to  the 
impenitent  and  disobedient  "our  God  is  a  consuming  fire." 
The  Apocalypse  not  only  comforts  us  with  the  redeeming 
blood  of  the  Lamb  (Rev.  v.  9),  but  it  warns  us  also  of  the 
destroying  wrath  of  the  Lamb  (Rev.  vi.  1G).  And  as  this  is 
true  of  the  eternal  Word,  so  also  is  it  true  of  the  written 
Word.  It  is  true  of  Christ,  and  it  is  true  of  Holy  Scripture 
also. 


I  I  2 


Miscellanies. 


The  foregoing  interpretation  may  probably  stagger  some. 
And  why  ?  because,  with  deference  be  it  said,  some  do  not 
realize  the  truth,  that  the  commonness  of  the  Bible  may  be, 
and  alas  !  is,  to  many  a  terrible  Woe. 

Let  us  consider  this. 

My  assertion  is — that  this  Prophecy  reads  to  us  a  solemn 
warning",  which  the  World  now  greatly  needs. 

Many  millions  of  Copies  of  the  Bible  are  now  in  circulation. 
A  copy  of  it  may  be  had  for  sixpence,6  and  a  copy  of  the  New 
Testament  for  twopence.  But  this  commonness  and  cheap- 
ness of  the  Bible  is  surely  an  awful  thing.  For  what  is  the 
Bible  ?  It  is  God's  Word.  He  speaks  in  it,  and  it  declares 
His  will,  and  reveals  His  gracious  acts  to  us  in  Christ,  and 
the  outpourings  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  sanctify  and  guide,  and 
to  strengthen  and  save  us,  God  showed  us  by  Moses  with 
what  reverence  we  ought  to  regard  the  Bible, — command- 
ing the  Pentateuch  to  be  placed  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  by 
the  side  of  the  Ark  (Deut.  xxxi.  24).  God  is  nearer  to 
us  now,  than  Christ  was  to  the  Jews,  when  He  was  upon 
earth.  And  He  proclaims  to  us,  more  clearly  and  fully  than 
Christ  did  to  them,  the  blessings,  infinite  and  eternal,  which 
are  prepared  for  men  if  they  believe  and  obey  His  Word, 
and  the  terrible  woes  which  are  in  store  for  them,  if  they 
will  not  listen  to  it,  but  neglect  and  disobey  it. 

And  now  it  may  be  asked,  Do  we  regard  those  myriads  of 
Copies  of  the  Bible,  as  St.  John  in  this  prophecy  teaches  us 
to  do — as  an  immense  Army,  an  Army  of  God,  sweeping 
through  the  World  with  rapid  speed  and  irresistible  force ; 
and  as  bearing  with  it  the  instruments  of  God's  justice,  in- 
dignation, and  wrath  to  all  who  do  not  care  for  the  message  ; 
and  as  a  herald  of  the  Great  Day,  when  (as  St.  Paul  speaks) 
the  Lord  Himself  will  "  be  revealed  from  heaven  with  His 
mighty  angels,  in  flaming  fire  taking  vengeance  on  them 
that  know  not  God,  and  that  obey  not  the  gospel  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ"  ?  (2  Thess.  i.  8). 

Although  Almighty  God  is  thus  very  near  to  us  in  Holy 
Scripture,  and  is  ever  speaking  in  our  ears,  are  there  not 

6  Bible  Society's  Report  for  1877,  p.  xxi.  S.P.C.K.  Report  for  1877, 
p.  272. 


Practical  application — Power  of  the  Bible.     1 1 3 


thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  among  us,  who  are  now  pass- 
ing their  lives  as  if  the  Bible  had  never  been  written  ?  They 
think  that  they  may  give  the  go-by  to  it,  and  that  they  will 
never  fare  the  worse  for  knowing  nothing  about  it.  This  is 
the  case  with  the  professors  of  Secularism,  Positivism,  So- 
cialism, Nihilism,  and  Internationalism.  Surely  it  is  an 
act  of  love,  to  warn  them  that  the  reception  or  rejection 
of  the  Bible  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference,  as  they  seem  to 
think;  that  it  is  not  "  an  open  question"  which  maybe 
adjourned  sine  die  ;  but  is  the  most  urgent  of  all  questions ; 
a  question  of  eternal  life  or  death.  And  this  is  precisely 
what  St.  John  the  beloved  disciple,  the  apostle  of  love,  has 
done  in  the  prophecy  before  us.  He  sets  before  our  eyes, 
in  vivid  imagery,  the  truth,  that  the  Bible  is  not  a  poor, 
weak,  helpless,  despicable  thing,  and  may  not  be  trifled 
with.  No,  the  Bible  is  more  grand,  majestic,  and  powerful 
than  all  the  mightiest  Armies  that  were  ever  marshalled  on 
a  field  of  battle,  and  will  destroy  all  who  despise  it. 

Others  there  are,  who  do  not  ignore  the  Bible,  but  in  a 
proud,  presumptuous,  self-complacent  spirit — like  that  with 
which  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  treated  the  Incarnate  Word 
— carp  and  cavil  at  it.  They  "  try  to  entangle  it  in  its  talk," 
and  "  lay  wait  for  it."  They  deny  its  divine  mission,  and 
reject  its  authority  and  truth.  Some  even  blaspheme  it  and 
scoff  at  it ;  in  a  word,  they  join  in  the  same  cry  against  it 
as  that  which  burst  forth  from  the  crowd  at  Jerusalem  on 
Good  Friday,  "  Crucify  Him,  crucify  Him."  It  would  be 
well  for  them  to  listen  to  St.  John's  warning,  that  the 
Written  Word  will  be  like  the  Incarnate  Word.  It  may 
have  to  pass  through  the  agony  of  a  Gethsemane,  to  be 
arraigned  in  a  Council  Hall,  and  in  a  Prsetorium,  and  to 
suffer  on  a  Calvary;  but  it  will  also  have  its  Mount  of 
Olives,  its  glorious  Ascension,  and  its  Coming  again  with 
Armies  of  Angels  on  the  clouds  to  judge  the  World,  and  to 
put  all  its  enemies  under  its  feet. 

This  is  what  the  Sceptic  and  the  Scorner  at  Scripture 
are  told  by  St.  John.     May  they  profit  by  his  words  ! 

Multitudes  also  there  are  who  do  not  ignore  the  Bible, 
and  who  do  not  sneer  at  the  Bible,  who  have  it  in  their 

VOL.  III.  1 


ii4 


Miscellanies. 


hands  and  even  profess  to  revere  it,  and  who  yet  disobey 
the  plain  precepts  of  the  Bible. 

St.  John  points  to  them  at  the  close  of  this  prophecy. 
He  speaks  of  two  classes  of  persons ;  first,  those  who  con- 
travene the  doctrines  and  worship  taught  in  the  Gospel,  by 
adoration  of  the  Creature;  and,  secondly,  those  who  con- 
tradict its  moral  teaching  by  acts  of  malice,  violence,  and 
murder,  or  by  impurity,  dishonesty,  and  fraud. 

As  to  the  first,  it  is  certain,  that  a  very  large  part  of  the 
Western  Church  at  the  present  time  pays  more  homage  to 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  even  to  the  Roman  Pontiff  (whose 
laws  supersede  Holy  Scripture),  than  they  do  to  Christ 
Himself  and  His  Word.  "  Woe  unto  thee,  Chorazin  !  Woe 
unto  thee,  Bethsaida  !  "  was  said  by  Him  to  the  cities  that 
heard  that  Word,  and  disobeyed  it,  and  to  those  modern 
Chorazins  and  Bethsaidas — unless  they  repent — the  Written 
Word  will  be  a  terrible  Woe. 

St.  John  specially  speaks  in  this  prophecy  to  us,  who 
above  all  nations  in  the  world  have  the  fulness  of  the  Divine 
Presence  vouchsafed  to  us  in  Holy  Scripture. 

The  desecration  of  the  Lord's  Day,  the  neglect  of  the 
public  worship  of  God  on  that  day,  especially  in  our  great 
towns,  in  spite  of  the  clear  commands  of  Scripture — these 
surely  may  look  for  a  sentence  of  Woe. 

Again,  the  bare  toleration  of  the  Bible  in  our  primary 
schools  of  national  instruction,  especially  in  Board  Schools — 
the  proscription  of  Creeds  and  Catechisms  explaining  its 
true  sense — the  stimulus  given  to  secular  learning,  as  if  it 
were  the  one  thing  needful ;  and  the  denial  of  all  encourage- 
ment to  Scriptural  knowledge  in  our  national  system  of 
School  Inspection ;  in  a  word,  the  preference  of  man's  know- 
ledge to  God's  wisdom ;  surely  these  are  sins  against  the 
Bible,  and  against  the  God  of  the  Bible,  which  may  be  expected 
to  bring  down  His  judgments  upon  us,  unless  we  repent. 

Again,  the  multitude  and  diversity  of  our  religious  divisions, 
and  our  proud  glorying  in  them,  as  if  they  were  signs  of 
religious  life,  in  defiance  of  clear  warnings  of  Holy  Scripture 
against  the  sin  of  Schism,  and  its  earnest  exhortations  to 
Unity,  these  surely  may  expect  a  sentence  of  Woe. 


Practical  application  to  England.  1 1 5 


Again,  in  the  Church,  which  holds  the  Bible  in  her  hands, 
and  has  a  command  from  God  to  teach  it  by  precept  and 
example — the  bitter  strife  of  opposite  parties,  the  proud 
resistance  to  authority,  the  sarcastic  evil-speaking  of  dignities, 
these  most  certainly  may  expect  a  sentence  of  Woe.  The 
sacrilegious  alienation  of  holy  things  to  profane  uses,  the 
Simoniacal  traffic  in  spiritual  things,  even  by  some  Priests 
of  God's  Church,  who  preach  His  Word  and  minister  His 
Sacraments,  these  may  look  for  a  sentence  of  Woe. 

And  when  we  come  to  consider  other  offences  against 
the  laws  of  Christian  morality,  plainly  set  forth  in  the 
Written  Word  of  God,  we  see  a  long  catalogue  of  sins 
notoriously  rife  among  us.  Adultery,  fornication,  divorce, 
infanticide,  desertion  of  wives  and  children ;  drunkenness, 
murders,  suicides,  poisoning,  thefts ;  gambling,  forgeries, 
frauds  in  trade ;  blasphemy,  disloyalty,  sedition,  slanderous 
calumnies,  and  arrogant  and  censorious  judgments  in  the 
public  press  (even  in  that  which  calls  itself  religious)  — these 
things,  alas  !  are  prevalent  in  a  country  which  enjoys  the 
inestimable  blessings  of  God's  presence  in  His  Holy  Word. 

Well,  therefore,  may  St.  John  warn  us  that  the  Holy 
Scriptures  have  an  irresistible  power ;  that  they  are  like  a 
mighty  Army ;  that  they  have  a  sharp  sting  like  serpents 
for  a  godless  world ;  that  fire  goeth  forth  from  their  mouth 
to  consume  their  enemies  ;  that  to  such  as  will  not  hear,  and 
believe,  and  repent  of  their  sins,  the  Word  of  the  living  God 
is  even  like  a  deadly  plague,  and  that  the  Trumpet  of  the 
Blessed  Gospel  of  Christ  is  a  Trumpet  of  Woe. 

But  lastly,  the  prophecy  warns  us  that  the  sounding  of 
this  trumpet,  the  Sixth  Trumpet,  will  be  followed  by  the 
sounding  of  another  trumpet,  the  Seventh  or  Last  Trumpet 
(Rev.  ix.  14,  15).  And  what  is  that?  The  Trumpet  of 
Resurrection.  The  Trumpet  of  Judgment,  the  Trumpet  of 
Eternity;  the  Trumpet,  which  will  herald  the  Coming 
again  of  Him  who  ascended  into  heaven,  and  who  will  come 
again  with  "  the  voice  of  the  Archangel  and  the  trump  of 
God  "  (1  Thess.  i.  9 ;  cp.  1  Cor.  xv.  52),  to  raise  us  from  our 
grave  and  to  judge  the  world. — Hear  the  words  of  St. 
John  announcing  it :  "  The  Seventh  Angel  sounded,  and 

1  2 


u6 


Miscellanies. 


there  were  great  voices  in  heaven,  saying,  The  kingdoms 
of  this  world  are  become  the  Kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of 
His  Christ ;  and  He  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever,  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  And  the  four  and  twenty  elders 
which  sat  before  God  on  their  seats,  fell  upon  their  faces  and 
worshipped  God,  saying,  We  give  Thee  thanks,  0  Lord 
God  Almighty,  which  art,  and  wast,  and  art  to  come ;  because 
Thou  hast  taken  to  Thee  Thy  great  power,  and  hast  reigned. 
And  the  Nations  were  angry,  and  Thy  wrath  is  come;  and  the 
time  of  the  dead,  that  they  should  be  judged,  and  that  Thou 
shouldest  give  the  reward  unto  Thy  servants  the  prophets, 
and  to  them  that  fear  Thy  name,  small  and  great,  and 
shouldest  destroy  them  which  destroy  the  earth  "  (Rev.  xi. 
14 — 18).  May  it  please  God  to  give  us  all  grace  so  to  profit 
by  the  warnings  of  the  Sixth  Trumpet,  that  the  Seventh 
Trumpet  may  not  be  to  us  a  Trumpet  of  Woe,  but  may 
awaken  us  from  our  graves  to  an  Eternity  of  Glory  ! 


BISHOP  SANDEESON,  CONSCIENCE  AND 
LAW. 


The  name  of  Bishop  Sanderson  will  ever  be  associated 
in  the  minds  of  English  Churchmen  with  questions  of  Con- 
science and  Law,  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical.  The  following  Pre- 
face to  an  English  translation,  published  by  me,  of  his  "  Lec- 
tures on  Conscience  and  Law  "  may  find  a  place  here. 

"  I  take  my  ears/'  said  King  Charles  the  First,  as  we  are 
told  by  Izaak  Walton,1  "  to  other  preachers ;  but  I  take  my 
Conscience  to  Mr.  Sanderson/'  The  royal  estimate  of  him 
as  a  logician  and  casuist  has  been  confirmed  by  the  verdict 
of  more  than  two  centuries.  Sanderson 2  had  prepared  him- 
self for  the  work  of  dealing  with  the  Human  Conscience,  by 
the  discipline  of  Logic,  on  which  he  delivered  lectures  at 
Oxford,  and  on  which  he  published  a  celebrated  treatise,3 
which  was  for  a  long  time  the  manual  and  text-book  of 
students  of  dialectics ;  and  when  he  was  appointed  Regius 
Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford,  in  the  year  1642,  he  had 
exercised  himself  as  a  divine  and  a  metaphysician  in  dealing 
with  the  principal  questions  of  theology,  both  in  doctrine 

1  Life  of  Sanderson  in  Bishop  Jacobson's  edition  of  Sanderson's  Works, 
vi.  296. 

2  Bishop  Sanderson  was  born  at  Rotherham,  in  Yorkshire,  on  Sep- 
tember  19,  1587.  He  was  matriculated  at  Lincoln  College,  Oxford, 
July  1,  1603  ;  chosen  Fellow  of  Lincoln  College,  May  3,  1606  ;  resigned 
his  fellowship,  May  6,  1619  ;  made  Prebendary  of  Southwell,  Notts,  and 
Rector  of  Wyberton,  Lincolnshire,  in  1618,  whence  he  was  removed  to 
Boothby  Pagnell,  near  Grantham,  in  the  same  county,  September  7, 1619  ; 
made  Prebendary  of  the  stall  of  Farindon-cum-Balderton  in  the  Cathedral 
Church  of  Lincoln,  September  3,  1629,  and  was  Proctor  in  all  the  Con- 
vocations in  the  reign  of  Charles  I. 

3  Printed  in  1615. 


i  iS 


Miscellanies. 


and  discipline,  and  of  ethics  and  politics,  -which  exercised 
the  minds  of  men  in  that  learned  and  restless  age. 

As  Eegius  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford,  he  delivered 
in  the  Divinity  School  seven  lectures  "  On  the  Obligation  of 
Oaths/'  in  Michaelmas  Term  in  the  year  1646.4 

He  also  delivered  from  the  same  chair  ten  lectures  "  On 
Conscience  and  Human  Law,"  in  the  year  1647. 

These  lectures  were  written  in  Latin ;  and  it  tells  much 
to  the  credit  of  the  Professor,  and  for  the  intelligence  of  his 
audience,  and  of  the  age  in  which  they  lived,  that  lectures 
on  such  difficult  subjects,  and  composed  in  that  language, 
should  have  been  so  attractive  and  acceptable  to  his  con- 
temporaries as  Sanderson's  lectures  were.  It  may  be  feared 
that  in  the  nineteenth  century  we  have  degenerated  in  this 
respect,  as  in  some  others. 

His  biographer,  Izaak  Walton,  thus  speaks  of  these 
lectures  on  Conscience : — "  How  much  the  learned  world 
stands  obliged  to  him  for  these  lectures  I  shall  not  attempt 
to  declare,  being  very  sensible  that  the  best  pens  must 
needs  fall  short  in  the  commendation  of  them,  so  that  I 
shall  only  add  that  they  continue  to  this  day,  and  will  do  for 
ever,  as  a  resolution  of  the  most  material  doubts  in  casuis- 
tical divinity."  5 

These  words  were  written  in  1678 ;  and  in  our  own  times 
the  late  Dr.  Whewell  (whose  name  it  is  enough  to  mention), 
Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  Professor  of 
Moral  Philosophy  in  that  University,  thus  expressed 1  his 
own  opinion  of  the  author  of  the  lectures  and  of  his  work  : — 
"  Bishop  Sanderson  is  generally  considered,  and  with  great 
justice,  as  one  of  the  ablest  and  soundest  of  our  theological 

4  These  lectures  on  the  Obligation  of  Oaths  were  translated  into  English 
by  King  Charles  L,  when  a  prisoner  at  Newport,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
See  Life  of  Sanderson  by  Izaak  Walton.  Zouch's  edition,  p.  393,  and 
Bishop  Jacobson's  edition  of  Sanderson's  Works,  vi.  305. 

5  "A  book  little  in  bulk,"  says  Bishop  Barlow  in  his  letter  to  Walton, 
"  but  not  so  if  we  consider  its  excellent  uses.*'  As  to  his  consummate 
casuistical  skill,  see  his  "  Cases  of  Conscience,"  London,  1678,  Sanderson's 
Works,  vol.  v.  pp.  5 — 127. 

6  See  Dr.  Whewell's  Preface  to  his  edition  of  Sanderson's  "  Praelectiones 
de  Obligatione  Conscientia?,"  Cambridge,  1857. 


Sanderson  s  Lectures  at  Oxford. 


119 


moralists.  His  lectures  Be  Obligatione  Gonscientice  were 
formerly  much  read,  and  even  now  it  would  be  difficult  to 
mention  any  better  example  of  the  ethical  school,  which 
preceded  the  influence  "  (so  much  deplored  by  wise  and 
good  men)  "  of  Hobbes  and  Descartes."  "  This  work,"  he 
adds,  "  may  be  considered  as  an  excellent  and  striking 

example  of  a  certain  period  of  our  ethical  literature  

and  it  would  be  difficult  to  discuss  most  of  the  moral  ques- 
tions which  form  the  latter  part  of  the  work,  in  a  more 
satisfactory  manner  than  is  there  done." 

Indeed,  if  Sanderson's  work  had  not  been  produced, 
England  could  scarcely  be  said  to  have  any  sound  philoso- 
phical treatise  on  casuistical  theology.  Jeremy  Taylor's 
'  Ductor  dubitantium  '  seems  to  have  been  derived  from  it. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  eventful  crisis  of  the 
history  of  the  Church  and  Realm  of  England  and  of  the 
Universities,  when  Dr.  Sanderson  was  Regius  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Oxford,  he  was  employed  (in  the  year  1647)  by 
the  University  to  set  forth  Reasons  against  the  "  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant "  then  enforced  by  a  Presbyterian 
Parliament,7  and  also  against  "  the  Negative  Oath,"  by 
which  the  Parliament  required  English  subjects  to  pledge 
themselves  not  to  fight  for  the  King. 

But  Sanderson  did  more  than  this ;  he  proved  his  sin- 
cerity in  the  sight  of  God  and  man,  and  he  showed  his 
regard  for  his  own  Conscience,  by  suffering  pains  and 
penalties  at  the  hands  of  those  who  had  risen  up  in  rebellion 
against  the  Crown  and  Church  of  England.  He  was 
enabled  by  God's  grace  to  bear  testimony  to  the  truth] 
and  was  ejected  by  the  Parliamentary  visitors  of  the  Uni- 
versity, for  Conscience'  sake,  from  his  Regius  Professorship 
of  Divinity,  and  from  his  Canonry  of  Christ  Church8 — 
seven  months  before  the  Martyrdom  of  his  beloved  King 
and  Master,  Charles  the  First. 

From  that  time  to  the  Restoration  he  lived  in  obscurity 

7  See  Sanderson's  Works,  edited  by  Bishop  Jacobson,  vol.  i.  p.  xvii,  and 
vol.  iv.  p.  362. 

8  The  Parliamentary  order  for  his  expulsion  may  be  seen  in  Zouch's 
edition  of  Izaak  Walton's  Life  of  Sanderson,  p.  395,  York,  1867. 


1 20 


Miscellanies. 


and  danger  at  Boothby  Pagnell,  in  the  County  of  Lincoln, 
and  his  benefice  there  was  sequestered;  and  while  there, 
before  the  king's  death,  but  after  1644,  he  had  been 
wounded,  plundered,  and  carried  a  prisoner,  as  a  royalist 
and  a  Churchman,  by  the  Parliamentary  army,  from  his  Par- 
sonage to  Lincoln  gaol.  He  was,  however,  exchanged  for  a 
presbyterian  minister,  of  Alington,  in  the  same  neighbour- 
hood, who  was  a  prisoner  of  the  royal  forces  at  Newark-on- 
Trent  ;  and  it  was  agreed,  that  after  that  time,  as  a 
consequence  of  that  exchange,  both  of  them  should  remain 
unmolested  in  their  parishes.9  He  continued  at  Boothby 
Pagnell  till  the  Restoration. 

At  the  Restoration  he  was  engaged,  with  other  eminent 
divines,  in  the  Savoy  Conference ;  and  the  esteem  in  which 
Dr.  Sanderson  was  held  by  the  Church  was  publicly  declared 
by  the  Convocation  which  appointed  him  to  write  the  Preface 
prefixed  to  the  English  Book  of  Common  Prayer  at  the  last 
revision  of  the  Liturgy. 

He  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  Lincoln  in  Henry  Tilth's 
Chapel  in  Westminster  Abbey,  on  October  28th,  1660;  and 
departed  this  life,  after  an  episcopate  of  self-sacrificing 
activity  of  two  years  and  three  months,  at  his  episcopal 
palace  at  Buckden,  between  nine  and  ten  in  the  evening  of 
January  29,  1662,  in  the  seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age. 

The  following  words  were  written  by  him  a  short  time 
before  his  death  : — 

"  I,  Robert  Sanderson,  Doctor  of  Divinity,  an  unworthy 
minister  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  the  Providence  of  God 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  being  by  the  long  continuance  of  an 
habitual  distemper  brought  to  a  great  bodily  weakness  and 
faintness  of  spirits,  but  by  the  great  mercy  of  God  without 
any  bodily  pain  otherwise,  or  decay  of  understanding,  do 
make  this  my  Will  and  testament,  written  all  with  my  own 
hand,  revoking  all  former  wills  by  me  heretofore  made,  if 
any  such  shall  be  found. 

"'  First,  I  commend  my  soul  into  the  hands  of  Almighty 
God  as  of  a  faithful  Creator,  which  I  humbly  beseech  Him 
mercifully  to  accept,  looking  upon  it  not  as  it  is  in  itself, 
9  Walton's  Life  of  Sanderson,  ed.  Jacobson,  vi.  p.  319. 


H is  acts,  and  confession  of  faith.  1 2 1 


infinitely  polluted  with  sin,  but  as  it  is  redeemed  and  purged 
with  the  precious  blood  of  His  only  beloved  Son,  and  my 
most  sweet  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  in  confidence  of  Whose 
merits  and  mediation  alone  it  is  that  I  cast  myself  upon  the 
mercy  of  God,  for  the  pardon  of  my  sins,  and  for  the  hopes 
of  eternal  life. 

"  And  here  I  do  profess,  that  as  I  have  lived,  so  I  desire 
and,  by  the  grace  of  God,  resolve  to  die,  in  the  communion 
of  the  Catholic  Church  of  Christ,  and  a  true  son  of  the 
Church  of  England ;  which,  as  it  stands  by  law  established, 
to  be  both  in  doctrine  and  worship  agreeable  to  the  Word 
of  God,  and  in  the  most  and  most  material  points  of  both, 
conformable  to  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  godly  churches 
of  Christ  in  the  primitive  and  purer  times  I  do  firmly 
believe ;  led  so  to  do  not  so  much  from  the  force  of  custom 
and  education,  to  which  the  greatest  part  of  mankind  owe 
their  particular  different  persuasions  in  point  of  religion,  as 
upon  the  clear  evidence  of  truth  and  reason,  after  a  serious 
and  impartial  examination  of  the  grounds  as  well  of  Popery 
as  Puritanism,  according  on  that  measure  of  understanding 
and  those  opportunities  which  God  hath  afforded  me.  And 
herein  I  am  abundantly  satisfied,  that  the  schism  which  the 
Papists  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  superstition  which  the 
Puritans  on  the  other  hand,  lay  to  our  charge,  are  very 
justly  chargeable  to  themselves  respectively.  Wherefore  I 
humbly  beseech  Almighty  God,  the  Father  of  Mercies,  to 
preserve  this  Church  by  His  power  and  providence  in  truth, 
peace,  and  godliness  evermore  unto  the  world's  end.  Which 
doubtless  He  will  do,  if  the  wickedness  and  security  of  a 
sinful  people,  and  particularly  those  sins  that  are  so  rife,  and 
seem  daily  to  increase  among  us,  of  unthankfulness,  riot, 
and  sacrilege,  do  not  tempt  His  patience  to  the  contrary." 

A  few  words  concerning  the  publication  of  these  Lectures 
may  now  be  added. 

Nearly  nine  years  ago,  on  my  promotion  to  the  See  of 
Lincoln,  I  specified  among  the  books  selected  by  me  as 
subjects  for  Examination  of  Candidates  for  Holy  Orders  in 
this  Diocese,  "  Bishop  Sanderson' s  Lectures  on  Conscience." 


T  22 


Miscellanies. 


But  I  found,  to  my  regret,  that  copies  of  them  were  not  easy 
to  be  procured,  and  that  the  Latin  language,  in  which  they 
were  written,  operated  as  a  hindrance  to  the  study  of  them. 
Dr.  Whewell's  edition  of  the  original,  accompanied  with  an 
abridged  English  version,  in  some  respects  diminished  the 
difficulty,  but  not  so  fully  as  could  be  wished. 

In  the  meantime,  the  condition  of  the  Church  of  England, 
with  the  various  important  and  difficult  questions  on  the 
relations  of  Church  and  State,  and  "  on  the  adequate  rule  of 
Conscience/'  and  on  the  subject-matter,  and  the  efficient 
cause,  the  obligation,  and  final  cause,  of  Human  Laws,  both 
Civil  and  Ecclesiastical,  which  are  now  occupying  men's 
minds,  and  are  exercising  a  powerful  influence  on  the  des- 
tinies of  the  Church  and  Realm  of  England,  have  renewed 
and  stimulated  my  desire  to  see  an  edition  of  Bishop  San- 
derson's Lectures  in  an  English  dress,  and  in  such  a  form 
as  to  be  easily  accessible,  not  only  to  Students  of  Theology, 
and  Candidates  for  Holy  Orders,  but  to  all  classes  of  society. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  mention  any  work  of  like  compass 
better  adapted  to  settle  men's  minds,  with  regard  to  the 
questions  which  I  have  specified,  than  these  Lectures  of 
Bishop  Sanderson. 

Let  me  premise  that,  on  account  of  the  scholastic  termi- 
nology of  the  first  Lecture,  some  persons  may  perhaps  be 
deterred  from  the  study  of  this  work.  It  may  be  suggested 
that  it  would  be  well  to  omit  that  Lecture,  in  the  first  perusal 
and  to  return  to  it  when  the  reader  has  become  more  familiar 
with  the  general  scope  and  contents  of  the  whole. 

The  English  translation  offered  to  the  reader  is  partly  a 
reproduction  of  one  published  by  Mr.  Lewis,  at  London,  in 
1722;  the  style  of  which,  though  somewhat  antiquated, 
seemed  even  on  that  account  to  be  a  better  representation 
of  a  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century  than  an  entirely  new 
version  would  be.  This  translation  of  Mr.  Lewis  has  been 
revised,  and  (may  I  not  hope  ?)  corrected  in  very  many 
places,  in  the  present  publication.  Some  critics  may  think 
that  the  work  of  emendation  (which  has  been  much  more 
laborious  than  I  had  anticipated)  might  have  been  carried 
farther. 


His  Lectures  on  Conscience  why  republished.  123 

Let  me  be  allowed  here  to  adopt  the  words  of  the  learned 
Editor  of  Bishop  Sanderson's  Works — one  of  his  successors 
in  the  Divinity  Chair  at  Oxford,  and  of  Bishop  Pearson  in 
the  Episcopal  see  of  Chester — Bishop  Jacobson  : 1 — 

"  The  times  in  which  Sanderson's  lot  was  cast  gave  him 
the  opportunity  of  seeing  the  Church  of  England  in  humilia- 
tion as  well  as  in  prosperity.  He  was  no  hireling,  to  abate 
at  all  his  love  and  devotion  in  the  evil  day.  To  him  a  season 
of  depression  and  distress  was  indeed  blessed ;  and  he  has 
an  eminent  place  among  the  acceptable  men  whom  the  fire  of 

affliction  has  tried  and  purified  After  making  due 

allowance  for  all  peculiarities,  personal  and  political,  we  shall 
ever  have  in  him  the  example  of  one,  beyond  whom  few,  if 
any,  have  at  any  time  been  permitted  to  advance,  in  a 
thorough  understanding  and  hearty  appreciation  of  the 
position,  privileges,  and  duties  of  his  Church  and  ours ;  one 
of  the  many  whom  we  may  be  thankful  to  follow,  as,  under 
the  training  of  that  Church,  they  followed  Christ." 

"  Being  dead  he  yet  speaketh."2  May  Bishop  Sanderson's 
voice  be  heard  by  many  willing  ears  and  loving  hearts  in  the 
present  age ;  which,  in  many  respects,  especially  in  its  con- 
troversies and  conflicts,  and  in  its  consequent  trials  and 
dangers,  nearly  resembles  that  in  which  he  lived. 

C.  L. 

1  Sanderson's  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  xxii,  ed.  Oxford,  1854.  Let  me 'here 
acknowledge  my  great  obligations  to  Bishop  Jacobson  in  the  notes  to  the 
present  volume. 

2  Heb.  xi.  4. 


Whitsuntide,  1877. 


ON  ECCLESIASTICAL  LEGISLATION. 


First,  as  to  Legislation  in  Ecclesiastical  matters,  let  me 
notice  what  took  place  in  Parliament  in  reference  to  the 
Public  Worship  Eegulation  Bill.  I  "will  not  refer  to  others, 
but  will  confine  myself  to  the  expression  of  opinions  for 
which  I  am  responsible. 

On  Monday,  April  the  20th,  1874,  the  "  Public  Worship 
Eegulation  Bill "  was  introduced  into  the  House  of  Lords 
by  His  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  The  Bishop 
of  Lincoln  expressed  a  hope  that  it  might  not  be  supposed, 
especially  by  the  Clergy,  that  the  Bishops  were  desirous 
of  dealing  with  matters  affecting  the  Eitual  of  the  Church, 
in  their  capacity  of  Peers  of  Parliament,  rather  than  in  their 
character  of  Spiritual  Fathers  and  Eulers  of  the  Church. 
The  Bill  to  be  introduced  for  the  "  Eegulation  of  the  Public 
Worship  "  of  the  Church  did  (he  said),  as  its  title  declared, 
profess  to  control  and  direct,  by  means  of  Parliamentary 
action,  the  work  of  the  Church  herself  in  her  most  sacred 
functions  and  solemn  offices  of  religion  ;  and  it  virtually 
concerned  the  Clergy  (the  ministers  of  the  Church — about 
20,000  in  number)  in  their  temporal  and  spiritual  interests ; 
and  he  was  of  opinion  that  ample  opportunity  ought  to  be 
given  to  the  Clergy,  who  had  no  voices  in  Parliament,  for 
expressing  their  sentiments  upon  it  personally  and  by 
means  of  their  representatives  in  the  Provincial  Synods  or 
Convocations  of  the  Church. 

He  trusted  that,  by  such  means,  the  evil  might  be  averted, 
which  would  otherwise  arise,  of  a  misunderstanding  and 
estrangement  between  the  Bishops  and  the  Clergy ;  which 
had  led  to  such  disastrous  consequences  in  the  eighteenth 
century.    He  was  persuaded  that  even  those  among  the 


Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill.  125 

Clergy,  who  had  been  charged  with  extravagances  and 
excesses  in  Ritual,  which  the  present  Bill  was  designed  to 
restrain,  and  which  he  greatly  deplored,  would  be  willing  to 
recognize  and  submit  to  the  Church  herself — speaking- 
authoritatively — in  her  Convocations ;  and  therefore  having 
heard  on  credible  authority  that  it  was  intended  to  fix  the 
second  reading  of  the  Bill  for  to-morrow  week,  the  28th 
instant,  he  ventured  to  express  a  hope  that  it  would  not  be 
pressed  unduly  forward,  especially  as  the  Convocation  of 
this  Province  would  meet  on  the  same  day  for  the  trans- 
action of  business ;  and  that  the  Church  herself  would  be 
invited  and  enabled  to  exercise  that  authority  which  belongs 
to  all  National  Churches,  and  to  declare  her  judgment  on  those 
rubrics  concerning  certain  questions  of  Ritual  which  were 
now  regarded  by  many  as  doubtful,  and  which  had  been 
diversely  interpreted  in  Ecclesiastical  Courts ;  and  also  be 
empowered  to  revise  such  Rubrics  as  seemed  to  her  to  require 
revision,  and  that  thus  a  peaceful  and  happy  solution  would 
be  obtained  of  our  present  difficulties,  which  would  be 
greatly  increased  by  legislation  in  Parliament  for  the  regula- 
tion of  public  worship,  without  any  previous  or  concurrent 
reference  to  the  opinions  of  the  Clergy,  and  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church  herself. 

The  Convocation  of  the  Province  of  Canterbury  met  on 
the  28th  April,  but  measures  were  not  then  adopted  in  the 
direction  above  mentioned. 

The  Bill  having  been  read  a  second  time  without  a 
division,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  endeavoured  to  plead  again 
the  same  cause,  on  the  motion  for  going  into  Committee, 
on  Thursday,  June  4th,  in  the  following  terms.  He  has 
added  one  or  two  statements  for  the  sake  of  clearness  : — 

My  Lords,  I  ought  to  apologize  for  venturing  to  trespass 
now  on  your  indulgence,  even  for  a  few  minutes.  But  having 
been  nearly  thirty  years  a  member  of  Convocation,  I  may  be 
permitted  to  say  something  with  regard  to  that  body  which 
has  been  referred  to  in  the  amendment  now  before  your 
lordships,  and  also  in  the  remarks  which  have  just  been  made 
by  the  noble  and  learned  lord  on  the  Woolsack.  And  in 
order  that  I  may  not  be  charged  with  undue  presumption,  I 


Miscellanies. 


beg  to  add  that  I  rise  after  previous  communication  with 
the  most  rev.  prelate  who  has  laid  this  Bill  on  the  table  of 
your  lordships'  House,  and  with  his  encouragement.  My 
lords,  I  do  not  rise  for  the  purpose  of  saying  that  legislation 
is  not  necessary;  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  it  to  be  urgently 
and  imperatively  required,  for  two  distinct  purposes — first, 
for  the  amendment  of  the  constitution  and  procedure  of 
our  Ecclesiastical  Courts ;  and,  secondly,  for  the  correction 
of  lawless  excesses  and  extravagances  on  the  one  side,  and 
of  the  no  less  lawless  negligence  and  slovenliness  on  the 
other  side,  which  exist  in  the  Ritual  of  some  of  our  churches. 
But  in  order  that  legislation  in  so  sacred  a  thing  as  public 
worship  may  be  effective,  and  in  order  that  it  may  produce 
harmony  and  peace,  and  not  lead  to  discord,  disunion,  and 
disruption,  it  must  carry  with  it  the  hearts  of  the  Clergy. 
The  Clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  are  about  20,000  in 
number,  planted  in  every  parish  of  the  country,  and  they 
exercise  a  powerful  influence,  not  only  spiritual  and  religious, 
but  also  moral,  political,  and  social.  It  would  be  an  evil 
day  for  the  Legislature  if  it  were  to  alienate  the  affections  of 
the  Clergy ;  it  would  be  disastrous  for  any  administration  to 
forfeit  their  confidence ;  above  all,  it  would  be  calamitous 
for  the  Episcopate  of  England  to  be  estranged  from  the 
Clergy.  England,  in  former  days,  had  bitter  experience  of 
the  evil  effects  of  such  a  separation,  especially  in  the  period 
dating  from  the  Revolution  of  1688  for  about  a  century, 
beginning  with  the  secession  of  some  of  the  most  learned 
and  pious  of  the  Clergy,  the  Nonjurors,  and  continued  through 
the  dreary  and  dismal  period  of  the  Hoadleyan  and  other 
controversies,  and  terminating  in  another  secession — that  of 
the  Wesleyans — from  which  we  have  not  yet  recovered : 
these  were  some  of  the  unhappy  results  produced  by  a  want 
of  confidence  and  good  understanding  between  the  Bishops 
and  Clergy  of  the  Church.  The  twenty  thousand  clergy  of 
the  Church  of  England  are  not  represented  in  this  House, 
and  none  of  them  have  seats  in  the  other.  It  is  therefore 
more  incumbent  on  the  Bishops  to  communicate  their  senti- 
ments to  your  lordships,  on  matters  which  vitally  concern 
their  temporal  and  spiritual  interests,  such  as  the  Bill  now 


Rights  of  Convocation — Fear  of  Romanism,     i  2  7 

before  you.    Let  me,  therefore,  be  permitted  to  report  their 
feelings  upon  it.    They  describe  this  measure  as  a  Bill  for 
the  coercion  of  the  clergy  under  severe  pains  and  penalties 
in  matters  uncertain  and  ambiguous.    Their  complaint  is 
that  Bishops  are  resorting  to  Parliament  to  compel  the 
clergy  to  obey  rubrics  which  are  doubtful,  while  some  of  the 
Bishops  themselves  violate  rubrics  which  are  clear ;  as,  for 
instance,  by  ministering  Confirmation  to  whole  railfuls  of 
candidates  at  once.    They  complain  that  Bishops  desire  by 
means  of  this  Bill  to  enforce  upon  the  clergy  what  is  called 
the  Purchas  judgment,  which  prohibits  them  to  use  an 
Eucharistic  vestment,  while  some  Bishops  disobey  that 
judgment  which  enjoins  them  to  wear  an  Eucharistic  vest- 
ment, the  cope,  while  celebrating  the  Holy  Communion  on 
festivals  in  their  own  cathedrals.     Ritualistic  excesses  are 
great  evils,  but  Episcopal  inconsistency  and  despotism  are 
not  more  venial.    My  lords,  I  report  simply  what  I  hear, 
and  hear  with  sorrow  and  alarm.    We  seem  to  be  on  the  eve 
of  a  great  crisis ;  it  may  be  an  ecclesiastical  and  civil  dis- 
ruption ;  and  who  can  foresee  the  consequences,  both  to  the 
Church  and  Realm  ?    Where,  therefore,  is  the  remedy  ?  It 
consists,  I  would  humbly  submit,  in  treating  the  Church  as 
a  Church,  and  not  merely  as  a  department  of  the  State. 
You  desire,  my  lords,  to  check  Romanism  by  this  Bill ;  but 
you  will  give  the  greatest  triumph  to  Romanism  that  it  can 
possibly  wish  for,  if  you  treat  the  Church  of  England  as  an 
Act  of  Parliament  Church.    This  is  what  the  Church  of 
Rome  desires  her  to  be,  and  if  you  treat  her  as  such,  per- 
versions to  Romanism  will  become  more  and  more  frequent 
among  us.    Let  me  entreat  you  not  to  despise  the  Synods 
of  the  Church.    This  is  a  policy  which  Romanism  would 
welcome  at  your  hands.    Let  me  implore  you  to  show  some 
regard  to  the  Church  of  England  in  ritual  matters,  as  repre- 
sented by  her  ancient  Convocations.    They  have  many  claims 
on  your  esteem.    We  owe  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  to  the 
Convocations.    The  Convocations  of  the  Church  of  England 
at  the  present  time  contain  very  many  members  of  great 
piety,  wisdom,  and  learning,  and  exercising  great  influence 
iu  all  parts  of  the  country.    If  in  spiritual  matters  you 


128 


Miscella?iies. 


show  no  deference  to  Convocation,  you  will  alienate  the 
clergy  of  the  Church.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  you  treat 
Convocation  with  respect,  you  will  conciliate  the  affections 
of  the  clergy.  And  then  legislation  on  such  matters,  which, 
without  Convocation,  will  be  abortive  and  obnoxious,  and 
will  lead  to  dissension  and  disruption,  will  become  compari- 
tively  easy,  and  will  allay  strife  and  produce  harmony  and 
peace.  You  may  disparage  Convocation,  if  you  will,  but 
you  cannot  afford  to  despise  its  influence  :  that  influence  is 
powerfully  exercised  over  a  large  number,  not  only  of  clergy, 
but  laity.  Convocation  is  an  energetic  instrument  for  good; 
because  its  authority  is  acknowledged  by  many  who  will  not 
readily  submit  in  spiritual  things  to  secular  power.  It  is, 
indeed,  objected  to  Convocation  that  the  laity  are  not 
represented  in  it,  but  this  is  surely  a  mere  verbal  objection ; 
the  action  of  Convocation  is  fenced  on  all  sides  by  the 
intervention  of  the  laity ;  Convocation  cannot  originate 
anything  with  the  view  of  framing  a  canon,  without  a  licence 
from  the  Crown  :  and  to  give  effect  to  synodical  canons  the 
subsequent  assent  of  the  Crown  is  requisite ;  and  they  can- 
not acquire  legal  validity  without  the  authority  of  Parliament. 
It  cannot,  therefore,  be  said  that  the  laity  have  not  great 
influence  over  Convocation ;  and  no  one  need  fear  any 
ecclesiastical  domination  from  it.  But  it  is  also  objected 
that  the  parochial  clergy  are  not  adequately  represented  by 
it.  Be  it  so.  Convocation  is  very  desirous  to  remove  this 
objection.  Let  it  be  enabled  to  do  so.  But  even  now  the 
parochial  clergy — yes,  even  some  among  them  who  are 
charged  with  ritualistic  excesses,  have  publicly  declared  in 
the  petition  of  the  800  clergymen  presented  by  the  noble 
duke  (Duke  of  Marlborough),  their  willingness  to  submit  to 
the  judgment  of  Convocation  in  doubtful  rubrics,  and  there- 
fore the  authority  and  influence  of  Convocation  are  great  for 
putting  an  end  to  religious  controversies,  and  for  producing 
and  maintaining  peace.  Will  not,  therefore,  your  lordships 
permit  a  reference  to  Convocation  for  such  purposes  as  those  ? 
Let  me  entreat  you  to  hold  out  an  olive  branch  of  peace  to 
the  Clergy  by  such  an  overture  as  that.  But  it  is  also  said 
that  Convocation  made  a  surrender  of  its  synodical  power 


Convocation  and  Parliament. 


at  the  Restoration.  This  I  beg  to  deny  :  it  merely  gave  up 
its  powers  of  taxing  itself;  but  its  synodical  and  even 
judicial  powers  in  certain  respects  were  recognized,  as  your 
lordships  may  remember,  by  a  large  majority  of  the  Judges 
of  England  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  ;  and  though  in  the 
stagnant  times  of  religious  lethargy  which  succeeded,  the 
exercise  of  those  powers  may  have  lain  dormant,  yet  its 
functions  have  never  been  abdicated,  and  if  in  the  present 
crisis  a  resort  is  made  to  Convocation  for  the  clearing  up  of 
those  rubrics,  suoh  as  the  rubric  concerning  the  position  of 
the  celebrant  at  consecration,  and  the  rubric  concerning 
ornaments  and  vestments,  and  for  the  revision  of  such 
rubrics  as  may  seem  to  need  to  be  revised,  and  if  the  most 
reverend  Presidents  of  the  Southern  and  Northern  Convoca- 
tions would  give  specific  directions  accordingly  to  their 
respective  Provincial  Synods,  having  first  received  licence 
from  the  Crown  to  treat  thereon,  there  is  little  reason  to 
doubt  that  in  due  time  a  peaceful  solution  might  be 
arrived  at  with  regard  to  such  matters  as  require  amicable 
adjustment  previously  to  legislation  upon  them.  I  am  con- 
firmed in  this  opinion  by  the  amendments  of  the  right 
reverend  prelate,  distinguished  by  his  eloquence  and  ability 
(the  Bishop  of  Peterborough),  to  which  the  noble  and 
learned  lord  on  the  Woolsack  referred.  I  confess,  with  all 
submission,  that  I  should  prefer  that  such  matters  as  those 
were  first  committed  to  the  consideration  of  the  Synods  of 
the  Church,  and  not  first  proposed  in  a  section  or  schedule 
of  an  Act  of  Parliament.  This  course  seems  to  savour  too 
much  of  constituting  Parliament  into  a  Synod  on  doctrine 
and  ritual.  Indeed,  the  very  matter  to  which  the  noble  and 
learned  lord  referred,  the  Athanasian  Creed,  which  is  one 
that  touches  the  essence  of  all  religious  doctrine,  would 
itself  involve  a  reference  to  Convocation  for  the  alteration  of 
a  rubric,  because  that  Creed  is  to  be  recited  by  the  people, 
not  alternately  with  the  minister,  as  is  too  often  the  case, 
but  as-  a  whole ;  and  whatever  the  minister  may  do  or  not 
do,  the  people  have  a  right  to  the  Creed,  the  faithful  laity  of 
every  parish  have  a  claim  to  it,  and  they  cannot  be  deprived 
of  that  right  by  any  exemption  of  the  minister.    My  lords, 

VOL.  III.  K 


130 


Miscellanies. 


on  Tuesday  last,  the  noble  duke  (the  Duke  of  Richmond) 
who  moved  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  for  the  Abolition 
of  Patronage  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  referred  with  just 
pride  and  honourable  satisfaction  to  the  assistance  he  had 
received  from  the  deliberations  and  decisions  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  as  exercising  great 
influence,  and  tending  much  to  promote  the  success  of  that 
ministerial  measure.  May  I  not  venture  to  appeal  very 
respectfully  to  the  noble  duke,  and  inquire  whether  the  Bill 
now  before  Parliament  for  regulating  the  worship  of  the 
Church  of  England  would  not  have  a  far  better  chance  of 
becoming  law,  and  of  affording  general  satisfaction  to  the 
clergy  and  laity  of  the  Church,  if  similar  regard  were  paid  to 
the  deliberations  of  the  Convocations  of  England  as  are  now 
beiug  manifested  by  Her  Majesty's  Government  to  those  of 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland.  Let  me 
remind  your  lordships  of  the  words  of  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  laymen  of  England,  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who, 
when  in  a  time  of  religious  lukewarmness,  he  was  rallied  by 
his  Scotch  biographer,  Boswell,  on  having  said  that  he  would 
stand  before  a  battery  of  cannon  to  restore  the  Convocation  of 
England  to  its  full  powers,  replied  with  a  determined  look 
and  earnest  voice,  and  said,  "  And  would  I  not,  sir  ?  Shall 
the  Presbyterian  Kirk  have  its  General  Assembly,  and  shall 
the  Church  of  England  be  denied  its  Convocation  ?  "  I 
know  not,  my  lords,  whether  the  noble  earl  who  has  proposed 
the  present  amendment  means  to  press  it  to  a  division  ;  for 
my  own  part,  I  would  rather  be  content  to  leave  the  matter 
to  the  wisdom  of  Her  Majesty's  Government,  and  to  the 
most  reverend  Prelates  who  preside  over  the  Convocations  of 
the  two  provinces,  in  full  confidence  that  the  licence  to  treat 
concerning  ritual  matters  which  was  freely  and  graciously 
conceded  by  the  Crown  to  Convocation,  under  the  recent 
administration  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  may  not  be  denied  to 
Convocation  by  his  successors  in  office,  and  that,  under  the 
paternal  authority  of  the  Archbishops  of  the  two  provinces, 
and  under  the  Divine  blessing,  the  deliberations  of  Convo- 
cation may  be  so  guided  as  to  avert  the  dangers,  both  civil 
and  religious,  which  now  threaten  us,  and  to  conduce  in  the 


Withdrawal  of  Amendments.  1 3  i 

most  effectual  manner  to  the  prevention  of  strife,  and  to  the 
preservation  of  peace. 

His  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  expressed  his 
willingness  to  promote  and  regulate  the  action  of  Convo- 
cation. 

On  Tuesday,  June  9th,  and  on  Monday,  the  15th  of  June, 
the  consideration  of  the  Bill  in  Committee  was  proceeded 
with. 

The  most  memorable  incident  in  the  debate  on  the  latter 
occasion  was  the  withdrawal  of  certain  amendments  (of 
which  notice  had  been  previously  given),  for  the  non- > 
imposition  of  any  penalties  or  disabilities,  under  this  Bill, 
on  any  clergyman  with  regard  to  the  side  of  the  Table  at 
which  the  Minister  ought  to  stand  when  saying  the  prayer 
of  Consecration ;  or  the  use  of  the  words  of  administration 
otherwise  than  separately ;  or  the  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Communion  during  the  time  of  Evening  Service,  or  the  daily 
use  of  Morning  and  Evening  Service ;  or  the  use  of  the 
Commination  Service,  and  one  or  two  other  matters ;  to 
which  was  added,  by  two  temporal  Peers,  the  use  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed ;  and  the  use  of  certain  words  in  the  form 
of  Ordination  of  Priests. 

It  was  proposed  in  these  amendments  that  the  above- 
mentioned  matters  should,  as  far  as  legal  proceedings  under 
this  Bill  were  concerned,  be  neutralized  and  rendered  indif- 
ferent, by  the  action  of  Parliament.  A  great  relief  and 
general  thankfulness  were  felt,  I  believe,  that  a  parliamen- 
tary discussion  on  such  matters  as  these,  affecting  the  faith 
of  the  Church,  and  the  most  solemn  ministrations  of  her 
worship,  was  avoided.  But  the  proposal  of  such  questions 
as. these  for  consideration  and  determination  by  the  Legis- 
lature (constituted  as  that  Legislature  now  is,  by  the  changes 
that  have  taken  place  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  last 
fifty  years)  without  reference  to  the  spiritual  authority  of 
the  Church  in  her  Synods  suggests  matters  for  grave  and 
serious  reflection. 

It  seems  to  indicate  that  there  is  urgent  need  for  careful 
examination  into  the  true  character  of  the  relations  of  the 
Church  (which  is  an  integral  part  of  the  English  Consti- 

K  2 


132 


Miscellanies. 


tution)  to  the  Legislature,  in  dealing  with  such  questions  as 
these. 

The  principle  which  is  involved  in  all  such  amendments 
is  clearly  this ;  that  matters  affecting  the  doctrine  and 
worship  of  the  Church  of  England  may  be  settled  in  Par- 
liament, without  any  previous  reference  to  the  Church  in 
her  synods. 

This  principle  seems  to  be  unconstitutional. 

In  proof  of  this  assertion,  let  me  refer  to  the  history  of 
our  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which  is  our  standard  of 
Doctrine  and  Bitual,  at  three  different  epochs,  first  soon 
after  the  Eestoration,  in  1662,  next  after  the  Eevolution,  in 
1669,  and  lastly  two  years  ago. 

Early  in  the  year  1662  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  was 
revised  by  the  Convocations  of  both  Provinces,  being 
authorized  by  the  Crown,  as  is  stated  in  the  Preface  to  that 
Book,  and  in  the  Act  of  Uniformity.  It  was  then  trans- 
mitted to  the  King  in  Council  for  approval ;  and  by  him  it 
was  sent  to  the  House  of  Lords,  where,  after  a  debate  upon 
it,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  celebrated  Earl  of  Clarendon, 
was  authorized  to  acknowledge,  in  the  name  of  the  House, 
the  work  of  Convocation,  and  to  express  its  approval  of  it. 
It  was  then  sent  to  the  other  House  of  Parliament,  where 
it  met  with  a  similar  reception. 

This  was  the  constitutional  method,  sanctioned  by  the 
Legislature,  of  dealing  with  questions  affecting  the  doctrine 
and  worship  of  the  Church. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  another  era  in  our  history. 

In  the  year  1689  a  Bill,  called  °  The  Comprehension  Bill," 
was  brought  into  the  House  of  Lords  by  the  Earl  of  Not- 
tingham. That  Bill  bore  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  the 
amendments  which  were  to  have  been  moved  in  Committee 
on  "  The  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill." 

Its  design  was  to  conciliate  different  persons  and  parties, 
by  declaring  certain  things  in  the  ritual  of  the  Church  to 
be  indifferent;  so  that  no  one  should  be  punished  for 
omitting  them  ;  such  as  the  cross  in  Baptism  and  sponsors  ; 
kneeling  at  the  Holy  Communion ;  the  use  of  the  Surplice. 

At  first  that  Bill  found  favour  with  the  Lords,  especially 


Act  of  Uniformity  Amendment  Act.        \  33 

under  the  influence  of  Bishop  Burnet.  The  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  Sancroft,  being  a  Non-juror,  took  no  part;  and 
Bishop  Ken  and  six  other  Bishops  were  Non-jurors.  The 
Bill  passed  the  House  of  Lords  mainly  by  the  help  of 
proxies ;  and  it  was  sent  to  the  Commons.  But  the  Com- 
mons were  of  opiuion  that  the  questions  dealt  with  in  the 
Bill  were  matters  of  Ecclesiastical  cognizance ;  and  that  the 
advice  of  the  Church  herself  ought  first  to  be  had  upon 
them ;  and  therefore  the  Commons  rejected  the  Bill,  and 
agreed,  without  a  division,  to  an  Address  to  the  CroWn, 
praying  it  to  summon  Convocation  to  deliberate  on  these 
matters,  and  they  asked  the  concurrence  of  the  House  of 
Lords  in  that  Address.  That  concurrence  was  voted  by  the 
Lords :  and  thus  the  judgment  of  Parliament  was,  almost 
unanimously,  declared  on  the  constitutional  method  of  deal- 
ing with  such  matters  as  these.  It  is  remarkable  that 
Bishop  Burnet  himself  afterwards  expressed  his  thankfulness 
for  the  failure  of  his  own  measure ;  for  if  it  had  been  suc- 
cessful, he  said,  it  would  have  caused  a  schism. 
Let  us  now  come  to  our  own  times. 

In  1872  the  "Act  of  Uniformity  Amendment  Act"  was 
passed.  In  the  preamble  to  that  Act  are  the  following 
words,  "  Whereas  Her  Majesty  was  pleased  to  authorize  the 
Convocations  of  Canterbury  and  York  to  consider  the  Report 
of  the  Commissioners  on  Ritual,  and  to  report  to  Her 
Majesty  thereon ;  and  the  said  Convocations  have  accord- 
ingly made  their  first  Reports  to  Her  Majesty,  Be  it  therefore 
enacted,"  fyc. 

We  may  observe  that  the  Act  speaks  of  the  first  Reports 
of  Convocation  on  Ritual,  implying  that  Convocation  would 
be  enabled  and  expected  to  make  other  Reports  in  succes- 
sion ;  and  Convocation  would  already  have  done  so,  if 
Parliament  had  not  been  dissolved,  and  if  Convocation  had 
not  been  dissolved  with  it.  It  appears,  therefore,  that  the 
constitutional  mode  of  proceeding  is,  that  Convocation 
should  now  be  authorized  to  continue  and  complete  the 
work  of  revising  the  rubrics  ;  a  course  commenced  during 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Administration,  when  Lord  Hatherley  was 
on  the  Woolsack ;  a  course  which  might  have  afforded  a 


134 


Miscellanies. 


peaceful  aud  speedy  solution  of  the  difficulties  of  a  crisis, 
which  is  now  causing  a  wide-spread  and  growing  disquietude, 
anxiety,  and  alarm. 

On  June  16,  1874,  I  added  the  following  words  in  a 
pamphlet  then  published,  entitled  "  Senates  and  Synods." 
Any  course  for  "  the  regulation  of  the  Public  Worship  of 
the  Church "  merely  by  Act  of  Parliament,  without  any 
reference  to  the  Church  herself,  seems  also  to  be  dangerous 
in  other  respects.  Let  me  illustrate  this  assertion.  I  do 
not  for  a  moment  doubt  that  the  present  Bill  is  intended 
by  its  promoters  to  check  the  growth  of  Romanism,  and  to 
strengthen  the  cause  of  the  English  Reformation  and  of  the 
English  Church.  And  I  heartily  wish  it  success  in  doing 
so.  But  I  should  very  much  fear  that  if  it  is  carried  through 
Parliament  without  any  such  reference  to  the  Church,  it 
will  do  much  to  aggrandize  Romanism,  and  to  paralyze  the 
cause  of  the  English  Reformation  and  of  the  English 
Church.  Let  me  explain  my  meaning.  A  long  and  careful 
study  of  the  controversy  with  the  Church  of  Rome  convinces 
me  that  the  strongest  argument  which  the  advocates  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  bring  against  us,  and  by  which  they 
beguile  most  perverts  from  us,  and  gain  most  proselytes  to 
themselves,  is  this  :  that  the  Church  of  England  is  not  of 
divine  institution ;  that  it  has  no  spiritual  character,  and  no 
fixed  principles ;  that  it  is  a  mere  creature  of  the  State ;  a 
mere  Act  of  Parliament  Church ;  that  it  depends  for  its 
doctrine  and  worship  on  the  veering  winds  and  fluctuating 
tides  of  Parliamentary  majorities :  and  has  therefore  no 
claim  on  the  spiritual  allegiance  of  any  who  regard  Chris- 
tianity as  a  Divine  revelation,  and  who  revere  the  Church 
of  Christ  as  its  divinely  appointed  depositary  and  guardian. 
If,  therefore,  Parliament  legislates  for  the  worship  of  the 
Church,  without  any  regard  to  the  authority  of  the  Church 
herself,  the  persons  who  will  most  exult  and  triumph  in  such 
legislation  will  be  the  emissaries  and  controversialists  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  They  will  say  that  their  bitterest  taunts 
against  us  have  been  justified  by  ourselves. 

I  will  not  dwell  on  the  consequent  perils  of  discord,  dis- 
trust, and  disruption  which  threaten  the  Church ;  and  will 


Liberty  and  Laiv. 


135 


extend  themselves  to  our  civil  institutions.  It  is  therefore 
earnestly  to  be  hoped,  that  Her  Majesty's  advisers  and  the 
Legislature  may  be  induced  to  act  on  those  constitutional 
precedents,  which  have  hitherto  secured  the  faith  and  unity 
of  the  Church  of  England,  in  peaceful  harmony  with  the 
State. 

A  conversation  took  place  on  Wednesday,  April  29th, 
1874,  in  the  Upper  House  of  the  Convocation  of  Canter- 
bury, on  the  presentation  of  a  Petition  from  some  distin- 
guished Laymen,  praying  that  sufficient  time  might  be  given 
to  the  Clergy  for  the  consideration  of  the  "  Public  Worship 
Regulation  Bill"  then  before  Parliament ;  and  I  wish  to 
state  somewhat  more  fully  what  was  briefly  expressed  by  me 
on  that  occasion. 

It  is  agreed  on  all  sides  that  the  constitution  and  modes 
of  procedure  of  our  Ecclesiastical  Courts  require  amend- 
ment. It  is  also  a  general  opinion,  that  a  remedy  is  needed 
for  abuses  prevailing  in  some  of  our  Churches,  in  the  ritual 
of  Divine  service,  whether  by  excess  or  defect. 

The  "  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill "  is  based  on  these 
two  acknowledged  facts. 

We  need  not  now  inquire,  whether  measures  are  not 
equally  required  for  the  correction  of  Ecclesiastics,  whether 
Bishops  or  Clergy,  who  may  offend  by  unsoundness  of  doc- 
trine or  viciousness  of  life ;  and  whether  such  offences  might 
not  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  legislative  enactment  as  that 
which  concerns  the  Public  Worship  of  the  Church. 

The  question  now  submitted  for  consideration  is — 

Whether  the  "  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill "  does  not 
require  the  complement  of  certain  co-ordinate  provisions,  in 
order  to  render  it  a  safe  and  salutary  enactment  at  the 
present  time. 

The  Bill  is  of  a  stringent,  coercive,  and  penal  character. 
Under  its  operation  a  Bishop  might  find  himself  to  be 
divested  of  his  character  and  influence  as  a  spiritual  Father, 
and  be  constrained  to  enforce  on  the  Clergy  of  his  Diocese 
a  rigid  uniformity  under  severe  penalties,  in  certain  ritual 
matters  which  have  hitherto  been  regarded  as  doubtful  by 
many  very  eminent  men,  both  in  Church  and  State,  and 


136 


Miscellanies. 


have  been  diversely  interpreted  by  Ecclesiastical  Judges, 
but  which  may  hereafter  be  decided  in  one  exclusive  sense 
by  Ecclesiastical  Courts. 

There  seem  to  be  two  important  principles  to  be  kept 
steadily  in  view  at  the  present  juncture. 

On  the  one  side,  it  is  the  duty  of  a  Church  not  to  surrender 
its  power  of  Toleration,  in  things  of  questionable  obliga- 
tion, especially  in  a  free  age  and  country  like  ours.  Eeme- 
dies  good  in  themselves  may  become  relatively  bad,  by 
reason  of  the  state  of  the  patient  to  whom  they  are  applied. 

We  need  the  higher  and  nobler  functions  of  Charity  and 
Equity  to  temper  the  rigour  of  Law,  and  to  prevent  Law 
from  degenerating  into  injustice. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  a  large  measure  of  Liberty  is 
conceded,  care  is  to  be  taken  that  it  may  not  be  abused 
into  an  occasion  of  Licentiousness. 

The  result  of  these  two  propositions  is,  that  the  measure 
of  Liberty  ought  to  be  determined  by  Law. 

In  other  words,  it  ought  not  to  be  left  to  individual 
Clergymen  to  choose,  by  an  eclectic  process,  what  rites  and 
ceremonies  they  please,  from  ancient,  mediaeval,  or  modern 
Churches,  and  to  import  them  into  their  own  Churches,  and 
to  impose  them  on  their  own  congregations ;  which  would 
lead  to  endless  confusion  ;  but  the  Church  of  England,  exer- 
cising that  authority  which  belongs  to  all  national  churches, 
ought  to  define  and  declare  publicly  by  her  synodical  judg- 
ments what  things  in  her  services  are  to  be  regarded  as 
obligatory,  and  what  may  be  considered  as  indifferent.  And 
she  ought,  as  an  Established  Church,  to  seek  for  legal  sanc- 
tion from  the  Crown  (if  she  proceeds  by  the  enactment  of 
Canons)  and  from  Parliament  also  (if  she  frames  new  rubrics) 
for  these  her  authoritative  definitions  and  declarations. 

These  were  the  principles  on  which  our  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  was  framed  and  revised. 

To  illustrate  by  examples  what  seems  now  expedient  to 
be  done. 

The  Eastward  position  of  the  Celebrant  at  the  prayer 
of  Consecration  in  the  Holy  Communion  was  condemned 
and  prohibited  by  the  Court  of  Final  Appeal;  and  the 


What  is  to  be  done  ?  V estments,  &c.       1 3  7 

position  at  the  north  end  was  declared,  in  the  Purchas 
Judgment,  to  be  the  legal  one. 

Being  desirous  of  showing  dutiful  obedience  to  the  Laws 
of  the  Church  of  England,  I  endeavoured  to  persuade  the 
Clergy  of  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln  to  consecrate  the  Holy 
Communion  at  the  north  side  of  the  Table,  so  as  to  be  able 
more  readily,  in  compliance  with  the  rubric,  ' '  to  break  the 
bread  before  the  people,"  i.e.  with  their  face  toward  them. 

But  does  it  follow,  that  a  Bishop  should  desire  to  be  armed 
with  powers  (such  as  are  given  him  by  the  present  Bill)  to 
enforce  this  Law  ?  And  does  it  also  follow,  that  he  should 
wish  to  be  morally  compelled,  on  the  complaint  of  three 
Parishioners,  to  enforce  it  ? 

By  no  means ;  for  by  such  a  course  he  would  probably 
drive  from  their  cures  some  zealous  clergymen  in  his 
Diocese,  and  produce  a  schism  in  the  Church. 

He  would  indeed  be  thankful  for  Uniformity,  if  he  could 
have  it,  as  well  as  Unity  ;  but  if  he  cannot  have  both,  he 
would  not,  in  such  matters,  sacrifice  Unity  to  Uniformity  : 
this  would  be  to  prefer  the  letter  to  the  spirit. 

But  would  he  wish  to  leave  things  as  they  are  ? 

No ;  for  at  present  (to  specify  an  example)  some  clergy- 
men who  consecrate  in  the  northern  position  are  prone  to 
condemn  a  brother  who  holds  the  eastward  position,  as 
doing  what  is  illegal ;  and  thus  strifes  are  engendered, 
destroying  the  peace  and  efficiency  of  the  Church. 

Where,  then,  is  the  solution  ? 

Let  both  of  these  two  positions  of  the  Celebrant 1  be 
declared  by  authority  to  be  lawful ;  in  other  words,  let  the 
position  be  pronounced  to  be  indifferent. 

The  position  of  the  Holy  Table  itself  is  already  declared 
by  Law  to  be  indifferent.  According  to  the  Rubric,  it  may 
be  in  the  chancel,  and  it  may  be  in  the  body  of  the  Church. 
Why  not  also  the  position  of  the  Celebrant  at  the  Holy 
Table  in  saying  the  prayer  of  Consecration  ? 

Each  of  these  two  positions  of  the  Celebrant  has  its  owu 
special  significance.  The  one  represents  the  divine  grace 
and  gift  to  man.  The  other  expresses  man's  plea  for  mercy 
1  This  has  now  been  virtually  done  by  the  Ridsdale  Judgment. 


133 


Miscellanies. 


and  acceptance  with  God.  The  one  looks  man-ward  from 
God ;  the  other  looks  God-ward  from  man.  The  one  posi- 
tion exhibits  the  benefits  of  communion  with  Christ.  The 
other  commemorates — and  pleads  the  merits  of — His  one 
Sacrifice  for  Sin.  In  the  Sacrament,  we  represent  to  God 
Christ's  Sacrifice  for  us ;  and  in  the  Sacrament  the  benefits  of 
that  Sacrifice,  offered  once  for  all,  are  continually  applied  to 
us.  We  gave  to  Him  our  flesh  at  His  Incarnation ;  and  in 
the  Sacrament  He  gives  back  to  us,  for  our  spiritual  suste- 
nance, that  flesh,  glorified  by  its  union  with  God.2 

It  might  be  well  that  the  English  Church,  by  permitting 
and  authorizing  both  those  positions,  should  set  before  her 
people  the  double  aspect  and  meaning  of  that  blessed  Sa- 
crament;  and  thus,  even  by  relaxing  the  strictness  of  ritual 
uniformity,  preserve  and  represent  unity  and  completeness 
of  doctrine  concerning  these  Holy  Mysteries. 

The  Purchas  Judgment,  while  it  prescribed  the  use  of 
the  Cope  by  the  Celebrant  in  Cathedrals  on  great  festivals, 
condemned  the  use  of  a  distinctive  Eucharistic  dress  by  the 
Celebrant  in  Parish  Churches.3 

As  long  as  the  preliminary  Rubric  remains  in  the  Prayer 
Book,  permitting  the  use  of  the  vestments  specified  in  the 
First  Prayer  Book  of  King  Edward  the  Sixth,  many  will  be 
of  the  opinion  that  such  Vestments  may  be  used.  Let  us 
no  longer  waste  our  energies  on  vexatious  and  ruinous 
litigation  (we  have  lately  been  told  in  Parliament  that  two 
lawsuits  cost  as  much  as  would  have  built  and  endowed  a 
Parish  Church)  ;  but  let  the  national  Church  of  England 
declare  by  her  Synodical  authority  that  a  simple  distinctive 
dress  for  the  Celebrant  at  the  Holy  Eucharist  is  permissible 
with  the  consent  of  the  Ordinary,  but  not  to  be  enforced 
upon  any.3 

s  See  Bishop  Andrewes,  Sermons,  I.  pp.  30,  43,  82,  83,  231,  ed. 
Oxf.  1841. 

3  The  Ridsdale  Judgment  now  affirms  the  use  of  the  Cope  in  Cathedrals 
at  all  celebrations,  but  forbids  the  Chasuble,  &c.,  in  Parish  Churches. 

But  now  that  the  surplice  has  become  the  usual  vestment  in  preaching , 
and  is  commonly  worn  by  laymen  and  boys  in  choirs,  some  simple,  dis- 
tinctive vestment  for  the  clergy  in  the  most  solemn  function  of  their 


What  is  to  be  done  ? 


139 


A  few  years  ago  the  adoption  of  the  surplice  in  the  pulpit 
in  some  parish  churches  produced  a  commotion.  And  why  ? 
Because  it  was  an  innovation  introduced  there  by  individual 
clergymen,  and  because  the  people  were  naturally  uneasy 
and  suspicious,  in  the  apprehension  that  other  innovations 
might  follow  in  rapid  succession  without  limitation.  But 
now  that  the  surplice  has  been  declared  to  be  a  lawful 
vestment  in  preaching,  the  objections  have  passed  away. 

Also,  as  soon  as  the  Cope  was  pronounced  by  the  Final 
Court  of  Appeal  to  be  the  lawful  vestment  of  the  Celebrant 
in  Cathedrals,  no  exception  was  taken  to  its  use.4 

Again,  at  the  present  time,  a  Bishop  may,  at  his  discre- 
tion, require  two  full  services  on  a  Sunday  in  any  Church  in 
his  Diocese ;  and  he  is  generally  presumed  to  have  a  discre- 
tionary power  of  enforcing  daily  service,  and  the  observance 
of  Saints'  Days  and  Holy  Days,  and  the  administration  of 
the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  after  the  Second  Lesson,  and 
public  Catechizing. 

But  if  the  present  Bill  were  to  become  law,  it  would  seem 
that  any  incumbent  "  who  failed  to  observe  the  directions 
in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  relating  "  to  these  and 
other  things  (I  quote  the  words  of  the  Bill),  might  be 
subject  to  severe  penalties.  I  refer  to  these  things  as 
showing  that  there  is,  and  must  be,  some  discretionary 
power  lodged  somewhere;  and  it  will  be  difficult  to  say 
where  it  can  be  vested,  if  not  in  the  Ordinary.5 

It  is  not  hereby  proposed  that  alterations  should  be  made 

ministry  seems  very  desirable.  The  Cope,  being  prescribed  by  Law  in 
Cathedrals,  might,  under  proper  safeguards,  be  permitted  in  Parish 
Churches.    This  has  been  recommended  in  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury. 

4  I  have  worn  a  Cope  in  Lincoln  Cathedral  ever  since  the  Purchas 
Judgment  was  given ;  that  is,  for  eight  years,  and  I  have  never  heard 
any  objection  to  it.    Other  Bishops  have  done  the  same. 

6  The  writer  may  be  allowed  to  record  with  thankfulness,  that  he  was 
able  to  attend  in  Parliament  on  Wednesday,  July  15,  1874,  and  to  vote, 
with  seven  other  Bishops,  against  the  amendment  from  the  Commons 
in  the  "  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill,"  which  would  have  destroyed 
all  the  discretionary  authority  of  the  Diocesans,  in  the  working  of  the 
Bill,  and  have  transferred  it  entirely  to  the  two  Archbishops.  The 
majority  against  that  clause  was  only  12 — but  (as  subsequent  experience 
has  shown)  it  saved  the  Church  from  a  great  calamity. 


140 


Miscellanies. 


in  matters  where  the  Law  of  the  Church  of  England  is  clear, 
or  where  there  is  a  consensus  of  primitive  Antiquity.  But 
there  are  one  or  two  other  ritual  matters  (and  I  do  not  think 
that  there  need  be  more)  which  might,  I  conceive,  be 
declared  by  the  lawful  authority  of  the  Church  and  State  to 
be  indifferent;  and  if  this  course  were  pursued,  then  the 
danger  of  a  Schism  would  be  averted. 

In  adopting  such  a  course  we  should  be  treading  in  the 
steps  of  our  own  Reformers,  and  of  those  Who  revised  tbe 
Prayer  Book  at  the  Restoration. 

The  doctrine  contained  in  the  Prayer  Book  is  unalterable, 
because  it  is  the  Faith  revealed  in  Holy  Scripture,  and 
received  by  the  Primitive  Church. 

But  the  English  Reformers  altered  the  Ritual  of  the 
Church  of  England  no  less  than  three  times  in  the  course  of 
twenty  years ;  and  in  the  Preface  which  was  prefixed  to  that 
Book  at  the  last  review,  about  200  years  ago,  and  which  is 
due  to  one  of  the  most  judicious  of  English  Prelates,  Bishop 
Sanderson,  it  is  affirmed  that  "it  hath  been  the  wisdom  of 
the  Church  of  England  ever  since  the  first  compiling  of  her 
public  Liturgy,  to  keep  the  mean  between  the  two  extremes, 
of  too  much  stiffness  in  refusing,  and  of  too  much  laxness 
in  admitting,  any  variation  from  it" — and  it  "is  but 
reasonable,  that  upon  weighty  and  important  considerations, 
according  to  the  various  exigency  of  times  and  occasions, 
such  changes  and  alterations  should  be  made  therein,  as  to 
those  that  are  in  place  of  Authority  should  from  time  to  time 
seem  either  necessary  or  expedient." 

It  may  therefore  be  presumed,  that  our  Reformers  and 
our  Revisers  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  would,  as 
wise,  learned,  pious,  and  charitable  men,  contemplating  the 
altered  circumstances  of  the  times,  and  the  condition  of  the 
Church  in  these  days,  be  the  first  to  relax  some  of  the 
stringent  laws  of  our  Ritual,  and  to  impart  to  it  more 
expansiveness  and  elasticity,  and  to  pronounce  certain  things 
to  be  indifferent  by  lawful  Authority,  in  order  that  they 
might  promote  those  high  and  holy  purposes  of  faith, 
worship,   and  morals,   for  which   the  Prayer  Book  was 


W  licit  is  to  be  done  f 


141 


framed,  and  which  are  paramount  to  all  rites  and  ceremonies 
of  human  institution. 

If  such  a  course,  as  has  now  been  traced  out,  were 
followed,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that,  under  God's  good 
Providence,  our  strifes  would  be  appeased,  and  Law  and 
Order  be  restored,  and  the  Church  would  be  free  to  devote 
her  energies  to  the  performance  of  her  divinely  appointed 
work,  that  of  waging  war  against  ignorance  and  sin,  and  of 
diffusing  the  Gospel  of  Christ  at  home  and  abroad,  and  of 
promoting  God's  Glory,  and  the  temporal  and  eternal  welfare 
of  mankind. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  JURISDICTION. 


Much  scruple  having  been  felt  by  some  of  the  Clergy  as  to 
the  propriety  of  submitting  to  the  decisions  of  the  Court  of 
Arches,  in  its  present  form,  and  also  to  the  Judicial  Com- 
mittee of  Privy  Council,  or  to  speak  more  correctly,  to  the 
Judgment  of  the  Crown,  acting  on  the  recommendations  of 
the  Judicial  Committee,  the  following  letter  was  written 
by  me  in  January,  1877,  to  a  Clergyman  of  the  Diocese  asking 
my  opinion  whether  the  Clergy  would  be  justified  in  resisting 
the  decisions  of  that  Court. 

In  reply  to  your  letter  I  would  observe  that — 
The  principles  which  ought  to  be  carefully  borne  in  mind 
by  all  who  deal  with  this  subject  are  these  : — 

1.  All  authority  is  from  God.  This  is  clearly  stated  in 
Holy  Scripture  by  St.  Paul  (Rom.  xiii.  1,  2),  "Let  every 
soul  be  subject  to  the  higher  powers  (or  authorities),  for  there 
is  no  power  (or  authority)  but  of  God ;  the  powers  (or 
(authorities)  that  be,  are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever  there- 
fore resisteth  the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God  ;  and 
they  that  resist,  shall  receive  to  themselves  damnation;"  and 
St.  Peter  says  (1  Peter  ii.  13),  "  Submit  yourselves  to  every 
ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake,  whether  it  be  to  the 
king  as  supreme,  or  unto  governors  ;"  and  St.  Paul  there- 
fore writes  to  the  Bishop  of  Crete  (Titus  iii.  1),  "Put  them 
in  mind  to  be  subject  to  principalities  and  powers,  to  obey 
magistrates,  to  be  ready  to  every  good  work,  to  speak  evil 
of  no  man." 

Resistance,  therefore,  to  human  authority  in  commands 
which  are  not  unlawful,  is  disobedience  to  God,  from  Whom 
all  authority  flows. 


Grounds  of  Obedience  to  Authority .  143 


2.  If  the  human  authority  commands  what  is  plainly  con- 
trary to  the  law  of  God,  Whose  representative  and  vicegerent 
the  human  authority  is,  in  such  cases  the  authority  is  not  to 
be  obeyed,  because  all  men  are  under  a  prior  and  paramount 
obligation  to  obey  God.  This  was  exemplified  in  the  history 
of  the  three  children  at  Babylon,  refusing  to  commit  idolatry 
at  the  bidding  of  the  king ;  and  in  that  of  Daniel,  refusing 
to  omit  his  prayers  in  obedience  to  the  decree  of  Darius ;  and 
in  that  of  the  Apostles,  refusing  to  desist  from  preaching  at 
the  command  of  the  Jewish  rulers.  In  all  such  cases  as 
these  we  must  say  with  the  Apostles,  "  We  ought  to  obey 
God  rather  than  men  "  (Acts  v.  29  ;  iv.  19).  We  must  obey 
men  for  the  sake  of  God,  but  we  must  not  disobey  God  for 
the  sake  of  men. 

3.  In  England,  the  supreme  human  authority,  under 
Christ,  over  all  persons,  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal,  and 
in  all  causes,  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  civil,  is  vested  in  the 
Sovereign.  This  is  affirmed  by  the  Church  of  England  in 
her  Articles  (Art.  xxxvii.),  (which  were  agreed  upon  by  the 
Church  in  Convocation,)  and  also  in  her  Canons  (Canons  1, 
2) .  Therefore  they  who  appeal  to  the  authority  of  the  Church 
and  to  her  Canon  Law,  are  bound  to  acknowledge  the  Royal 
Supremacy,  properly  understood;  and  he  that  resists  that 
authority  in  anything  which  is  not  plainly  repugnant  to  the 
law  of  God,  not  only  resists  the  law  of  the  State,  but  of  the 
Church ;  he  resists  God,  from  Whom  all  the  authority  of 
rulers  and  laws  is  derived. 

4.  In  the  realm  of  England,  the  laws  of  the  land  are  the 
laws  of  the  sovereign.  They  have  no  validity  before  they 
receive  the  royal  assent.  In  the  words  of  Bishop  Sanderson 
(in  his  seventh  lecture  on  Conscience  and  on  the  efficient 
cause  of  human  Law),  "  Our  laws  in  England  are  called  the 
King's  Laws,  because  the  kings  of  England  are  the  fountains 
of  law  and  justice,  and  because  God  has  bestowed  upon  them 
a  sovereign  imperial  power,  by  which  they  give  a  force  to 
the  laws  themselves,  and  cause  them  to  be  received  as  such/' 

And  this  is  not  only  the  case  with  regard  to  laws  con- 
cerning civil  matters,  but  also  with  respect  to  laws  ecclesias- 
tical, as  the  same  author  reminds  us  in  the  same  lecture.  The 


144 


Miscellanies. 


Canons  framed  by  the  Church  in  her  Convocations  and 
Synods  "  have  no  obligatory  force,  till  they  receive  the  assent 
of  the  Sovereign,  by  whose  public  authority  as  soon  as  they 
are  confirmed,  they  immediately  pass  into  a  law,  and  oblige 
the  conscience  of  the  subject." 

5.  It  is  not  indeed  to  be  imagined,  that  Bishops  and  Clergy 
of  the  Church  of  England  derive  their  authority  to  preach  or 
to  minister  the  sacraments,  from  any  human  source.  No ;  they 
derive  it  from  Christ,  and  from  Christ  alone,  Who  is  supreme 
over  all  human  authority ;  and  from  Whom  all  authority 
comes.  But  the  designation  of  the  places  in  which  (such  as 
dioceses  and  parishes),  their  divinely  appointed  authority  is 
to  be  exercised-  and  applied  by  Bishops  and  Clergy,  and  the 
external  jurisdiction  by  which  that  authority  is  supported,  are 
from  the  laws  of  the  Realm,  and  from  the  supreme  human 
authority  in  it. 

6.  Not  only  all  Laics  in  England  which  have  any  co-active 
authority,  whether  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  are  acknowledged 
by  our  greatest  theologians  to  be  the  Laws  of  the  Sovereign; 
but  all  Courts,  whether  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  are,  strictly 
speaking,  the  Queen's  Courts.1 

This  is  distinctly  stated  in  the  statute  of  the  first  year  of 
King  Edward  the  Sixth,  in  these  words,  "all  Courts  Eccle- 
siastical are  kept  by  no  other  authority  than  that  of  the 
King's  most  excellent  Majesty,"  and  this  is  fully  set  forth  in 
Bishop  Sanderson's  treatise,  "on  Episcopacy  not  prejudicial 
to  Royal  Power,"  (p.  47,  ed.  Lond.,  1673,  or  in  Bishop 
Jacobson's  edition,  vol.  v.,  p.  162),  to  which  I  bog  to  refer.1 

7.  Let  me  now  apply  these  principles  to  the  question 
which  you  have  submitted  to  me. 

I  am  of  opinion  that  in  framing  laws  which  concern 
the  Clergy  and  their  public  ministrations,  it  is  desirable 
that  the  Temporal  Power  should  avail  itself  of  the  counsel  of 
Bishops  and  Clergy  in  Provincial  Synods,  duly  convened 
under  royal  authority,  according  to  the  principle  laid  down 
in  the  celebrated  statute  of  appeals  (24  Hen.  VIII.  c.  12). 

For  the  better  framing  of  such  laws,  and  for  the  readier 
acceptance  of  them  by  the  Clergy,  such  a  course  is  certainly 
1  See  the  notes  at  the  end  of  this  letter,  pp.  150—154. 


The  present  Cottrt  of  Arches. 


145 


veiy  expedient,  and  I  stated  as  much  in  the  Parliamentary- 
debates  on  the  Public  Worship  Regulation  Bill,  on  April 
28th  and  June  4th,  1874,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  also 
in  a  tract  then  published  by  me,  entitled  "  Senates  and 
Synods."    (See  above,  pp.  125—130,  132—135.) 

The  question,  however,  raised  in  your  letter  to  me,  is  not, 
— Whether  the  "  Public  Worship  Regulation  Act "  would 
not  have  been  a  much  better  measure,  if  it  had  been  passed 
with  the  consent  of  the  Church  iu  her  Convocations, — but 
the  question  is,  Whether  the  decisions  of  the  Court  of  Arches, 
as  modified  by  that  Act,  have  no  spiritual  validity,  and  ought 
to  be  resisted  by  the  Clergy  ? 

And  here  let  us  refer  to  our  history.  The  Second  Prayer 
Book  of  Edward  the  Sixth  and  the  Prayer  Book  of  Elizabeth 
were  put  forth  by  the  Crown,  with  the  advice  of  certain 
Bishops  and  Divines,  and  with  the  authority  of  Parliament, 
but  not  of  Convocation.  The  additions  to  the  Church  Cate- 
chism, and  other  changes  in  the  Prayer  Book  in  the  reign  of 
King  James  the  First,  did  not  receive  the  assent  of  Con- 
vocation till  after  their  promulgation  by  the  Crown  (see 
Canon  80).  The  use  of  our  Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible 
of  1611  does  not  rest  on  the  sanction  of  Convocation.  The 
Legislative  measures  which  have  altered  the  constitution  and 
condition  of  our  Cathedral  Churches,  and  the  f"  Church  Dis- 
cipline Act,"  have  been  passed  without  Synodical  sanction. 

These  are  examples  of  anomalies  which  we  reasonably 
regret;  and  we  shall  do  well  to  endeavour  to  prevent  their 
recurrence  by  all  well-considered  measures  in  our  power ; 
especially  by  reference  to  the  action  of  the  House  of  Commons 
with  regard  to  the  "  Comprehension  Bill  "  in  1689  (see  above, 
p.  132). 

Again,  the  question  which  is  raised  in  the  letter  which 
you  have  sent  me,  is  whether  sentences  of  suspension  or 
inhibition  pronounced  by  the  Court  of  Arches,  as  recently 
modified  by  the  Public  Worship  Regulation  Act,  are  "  spiri- 
tually null  and  void;"  and  whether  it  be  right  to  encourage 
the  Clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  to  "  continue  to  dis- 
charge their  spiritual  functions,"  notwithstanding  such 
sentences,  by  assuring  them  not  only  of  sympathy,  but  of 

VOL.  III.  L 


146 


Miscellanies. 


"  sucli  support  and  assistance  as  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  might  demand." 

The  precise  meaning  of  the  word  spiritually  in  this  proposi- 
tion is  not  clear ;  it  may  signify  what  appertains  to  the 
Church  as  distinct  from  the  State,  and  be  equivalent  to  eccle- 
siastical;  or  it  may  mean  what  is  divine,  and  affects  the  con- 
science. 

Let  us  consider  it  in  both  these  senses. 

The  Court  in  question  is  an  Ecclesiastical  Court,  it  is  the 
Court  of  the  Province,  in  which  a  Judge  sits  who  is  delegated 
by  the  Metropolitan. 

The  Court  of  Arches  is  also  one  of  the  Queen's  Courts  ; 
and  has  been  constituted  by  a  legislative  enactment,  which 
is  one  of  the  Queen's  laws ;  and  the  Queen's  Majesty  is 
acknowledged  by  the  Church  of  England  to  be  supreme, 
under  God,  over  all  persons,  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal, 
and  in  all  causes,  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  civd.  Accordingly, 
ever  since  the  Eeformation  in  the  16th  century,  there  has 
been  an  Appeal  to  the  Crown  in  all  causes,  spiritual  or  eccle- 
siastical ;  and  not  only  so,  but  every  Priest  of  the  Church  of 
England  solemnly  pledged  himself  in  the  House  of  God,  at 
his  ordination  to  the  priesthood,  to  "minister  the  doctrine  and 
sacraments  and  discipline  of  Christ  as  the  Lord  hath  com- 
manded, and  as  this  Church  and  Realm  hath  receivedthe  same." 

We  may,  or  we  may  not,  regard  this  state  of  things  as 
satisfactory.  It  has,  I  think,  its  imperfections  in  practice, 
as  all  earthly  things  have.  But,  my  dear  friend,  we  need 
not  hesitate  to  prefer  our  own  system  of  Church  Government 
to  other  systems ;  such,  for  example,  as  the  Papal,  where  all 
authority,  human  and  Divine,  is  subjected  to  the  will  of  one 
man ;  or  the  Puritan,  where,  under  a  professed  zeal  for  the 
royalties  of  Christ,  all  is  made  subservient  to  consistories  of 
human  invention;  or  the  Erastian,  where  Divine  law  is  to 
give  way  to  the  human  will ;  or  to  the  still  more  modern 
theory  of  Government,  where  everything  is  at  the  mercy  of 
popular  plebiscites.  And  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  "  dis- 
estahlished  churches/'  as  far  as  we  have  seen  it,  is  not  very 
happy  in  its  results.  Perhaps  some  of  those,  who  now  court 
Disestablishment,  would  be  the  first  to  rue  it. 


Duty  of  Bishops  and  Clergy. 


H7 


But  after  all  we  must  remember,  this  is  not  the  question. 
The  question  is  whether  we,  the  Bishops  and  Clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England,  who  have  been  admitted  to  our  offices 
and  benefices  under  certain  conditions  freely  accepted  by 
ourselves,  are  at  liberty  to  violate  those  conditions,  and  then 
to  claim  a  right  to  hold  those  offices  and  benefices. 

Such  a  course  seems  to  be  at  variance  with  the  duty  which 
we  owe,  as  Clergymen,  to  the  Church. 

And  now  suppose  it  to  be  alleged,  that  the  Court  in 
question  cannot  by  any  of  its  judgments  oblige  our  con- 
sciences to  obedience.  Let  me  answer  again,  in  the 
words  of  Bishop  Sanderson,  that  "  temporal  authority 
may  have  a  spiritual  effect  derived  to  it  from  the  power 
of  some  superior  cause  under  which  it  acts.  A  magistrate, 
when  he  justly  executes  his  legislative  power  which  God  has 
put  into  his  hands,  acts  by  virtue  of  a  divine  authority,  and 
by  the  appointment  of  God,  Who  is  a  spirit,  and  Who,  as 
the  Lord  and  Father  of  spirits,  has  sovereign  authority  over 
the  spirits  of  men."  (Bishop  Sanderson,  Lecture  5.)  Here 
the  words  of  the  Apostle  apply,  "  We  must  needs  be  subject 
not  only  for  wrath  (i.e.  for  fear  of  punishment)  but  for  con- 
science sake."    (Rom.  xiii.  5.) 

To  resist  such  authority,  in  things  which  are  not  clearly 
contrary  to  the  Divine  Law,  is  to  resist  God ;  and  such  an 
offence  is  greater  in  the  Clergy,  who  have  pledged  them- 
selves to  be  subject  to  the  Sovereign  as  "  supreme  over  all 
persons,  and  in  all  causes  ecclesiastical  and  civil ;"  and  who 
are  bound  to  teach  others  by  example  as  well  as  by  precept 
"  to  be  subject  to  principalities  and  powers,  and  to  obey 
magistrates.    (Titus  hi.  13.) 

8.  When  also  a  Clergyman,  who  has  solemnly  promised 
at  his  ordination  to  obey  his  Ordinary  (i.  e.  the  Bishop  of 
the  Diocese),  is  commanded  by  his  Bishop,  in  the  exercise 
of  his  Episcopal  authority,  to  submit  to  the  decisions  of  the 
Court  of  Arches,  as  now  constituted,  I  confess  that  I  can- 
not understand  how,  in  such  a  case,  "  the  decisions  of  the 
Court  have  no  spiritual  validity,"  but  on  the  contrary, 
a  Clergyman  who  sets  them  at  defiance,  appears  to  be 

L  2 


143 


Miscellanies. 


openly  despising  and  resisting  both  temporal  and  spiritual 
authority. 

9.  — It  may  indeed  be  alleged  by  some  well-meaning  per- 
sons that  such  clergymen  are  suffering  persecution,  and  have 
claims  to  sympathy  and  support,  But  the  fact  is,  such 
clergymen  are  not  martyrs,  but  persecutors.  They  are  perse- 
cuting the  Church  of  which  they  are  ministers,  by  disturbing 
its  peace,  and  by  stirring  up  strife,  and  by  spreading  con- 
fusion and  anarchy,  and  by  marring  its  efficacy,  and  im- 
perilling its  safety. 

As  was  observed  long  ago  by  St.  Augustine,  such  persons 
are  like  Agar  and  Ishmael,  who  complained  of  persecution, 
but  who  persecuted  Sarah  and  Isaac.    (Galat.  iv.  29.) 

10.  — The  "resolution  "  you  have  sent  me  pledges  all  who 
vote  for  it,  to  give  to  those,  who  resist  the  authority  of  the 
Court  of  Arches,  "  such  support  and  assistance  as  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case  may  demand." 

In  other  words,  it  will  bind  them  not  only  to  help  in 
defraying  the  legal  expenses  of  such  clergymen  as  may 
resist  those  decisions,  but  also  to  provide  maintenance  for 
them  and  their  families  during  suspension  and  after  de- 
privation. 

This  may  be  a  very  serious  matter ;  but  it  vanishes  into 
insignificance  when  compared  with  the  consequences  of  the 
separation  of  pastors  from  their  flocks,  and  of  the  disruption 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  of  all  the  calamitous  results 
of  such  a  disruption,  moral  and  religious,  not  only  to  the 
Church  but  to  the  Nation. 

11.  — Such  a  resolution  must,  if  carried,  lead  its  supporters 
much  further. 

They  who  resist  the  decisions  of  the  Court  of  Arches  on 
the  grounds  alleged  by  them,  must  by  parity  of  reasoning 
proceed  also  to  resist  the  authority  of  the  Final  Court  of 
Appeal,  namely,  the  Judicial  Committee  of  Privy  Council, 
which  has  succeeded  the  Court  of  Delegates,  and  has  been 
constituted  by  legislative  enactments,  without  the  advice  or 
assent  of  the  Church.  Indeed,  this  is  already  avowed  by 
some  among  them.  And,  my  dear  friend,  who  can  foresee 
what  will  be  the  end  of  such  a  conflict  as  this  ? 


Example  of  our  Lord  and  the  Apostles.       i  49 

12.  — In  writing  thus,  I  shall  not  be  supposed  to  say  that 
our  present  system  of  Ecclesiastical  Judicature,  and  our 
present  mode  of  legislating1  on  ecclesiastical  and  religious 
questions,  are  not  open  to  serious  objections,  and  do  not 
require  amendment.  On  the  contrary,  I  fully  admit  the 
force  of  much  that  is  pleaded  in  both  these  respects.  I  am 
of  opinion  that  for  the  salce  of  the  State,  as  well  as  for  that  of 
the  Church,  more  liberty  ought  to  be  given  to  the  Church, 
and  more  importance  be  attached  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Spiritualty  in  Ecclesiastical  causes,  and  to  the  action  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  her  Synods,  diocesan  and  pro- 
vincial, so  that  she  may  be  recognized  in  her  authentic 
character,  as  grounded  on  Holy  Scripture,  interpreted  by 
the  consent  and  practice  of  the  ancient  Catholic  Church. 

Greater  security  ought  also  to  be  given  than  is  now  the 
case,  for  the  proper  exercise  of  Ecclesiastical  Jurisdiction 
by  a  better  constitution  of  Church  Courts. 

But  we  shall  never  obtain  these  benefits  by  violent  resis- 
tance to  constituted  authorities.  On  the  contrary,  by  such 
resistance  we  shall  provoke  violent  reprisals,  and  greatly 
injure  the  cause  we  desire  to  maintain. 

13.  — And  here  let  us  consider  the  example  of  our  blessed 
Lord  Himself  and  His  Apostles.  Their  days  were  evil  days 
for  the  ancient  Hebrew  Church  of  God.  Bad  men  sat  in 
high  places,  civil  and  ecclesiastical.  And  yet  our  Lord 
commanded  His  disciples  to  obey  them  in  all  matters  not 
contrary  to  God's  law.  (Matthew  xxiii.  2.)  The  Hebrew 
High  Priesthood,  instituted  by  God  Himself,  was  no  longer 
hereditary  for  life,  but  High  Priests  were  made  and  unmade 
by  the  heathen  power  of  Rome.  Yet  our  Lord  communi- 
cated with  them  in  the  Temple,  and  pleaded  before  them ; 
and  His  Apostle  St.  Paul  stood  at  the  Tribunal  of  one  of  the 
worst  of  that  number,  and  owned  him  as  the  ruler  of  God's 
people,  and  corrected  himself  for  speaking  evil  of  him. 
(Acts  xxiii.  4,  5.)  And  he  pleaded,  in  a  cause  of  religion, 
even  before  Felix,  and  before  Agrippa,  and  Festus.  (Acts 
xxv.  xxvi.) 

14.  — No  age  of  the  Church  can  be  mentioned,  in  which 
there  have  not  been  many  flaws  and  blemishes  in  the  rela- 


Miscellanies. 


tions  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities.  But  the  way 
to  remove  them  is  not  by  disobeying  God  in  resistance  to 
lawful  authority,  but  by  judicious  remedial  measures,  and 
by  doing  our  own  duties  in  our  respective  callings,  and  by 
improving  the  Diocesan  and  Parochial  system  of  the  Church 
of  England,  especially  in  our  large  towns  ;  and  by  diffusing 
her  benign  influence  in  the  hearts  of  the  population,  so  that 
by  their  means  acting  on  the  Legislature,  wise  and  whole- 
some Laws  may  be  enacted,  and  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
Authorities  may  move  in  harmonious  concert  for  the  promo- 
tion of  the  Divine  glory,  in  obedience  to  the  Divine  Will 
and  Word,  for  the  honour  of  the  Crown  of  England,  for  the 
peace  and  stability  of  the  Church,  and  for  the  safety  and 
prosperity  of  the  Realm. 

I  am,  my  dear  Canon  Hole,  yours  affectionately, 

C.  Lincoln. 

The  Rev.  Canon  Hole,  Rural  Dean, 
Caunton  Manor,  Newark-on-Trent. 


The  following  is  from  Bishop  Sanderson,  On  Episcopacy, 
8fc.}  pages  26 — 35,  ed.  Lond.  1673.  Bishop  Sanderson's 
authority  in  the  Convocation  and  Church  of  England  was 
evinced  by  his  being  appointed  to  write  the  Preface  to  our 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  at  the  last  revision  of  it : — 

The  Ministerial  Power  (in  the  Church)  is  that  which  is 
common  to  Bishops  with  their  fellow-Presbyters,  viz.  the 
Preaching  of  the  Word,  and  the  Administration  of  the 
Sacraments;  and  is  confessed  to  be  from  heaven,  and  of 
God. 

And  yet  no  prejudice  is  at  all  conceived  to  be  done  thereby 
to  the  regal  power ;  because  the  Ministers,  who  exercise  that 
power,  are  the  King's  subjects,  and  are  also,  in  the  executing 
of  those  very  acts,  that  are  proper  to  their  ministerial  func- 
tions, to  be  limited  and  ordered  by  the  Ecclesiastical  Laws, 
i.e.  by  such  Laws  as  have  been  by  regal  power  established 
in  this  realm. 

The  King  doth  no  more  challenge  to  himself,  as  belonging 


Limits  of  Royal  Supremacy. 


to  hiru  by  virtue  of  his  Supremacy  Ecclesiastical,  the  power 
of  ordaining  Ministers,  excommunicating  scandalous  offen- 
ders, or  doing  any  other  act  of  Episcopal  office  in  his  own 
power,  than  he  doth  the  power  of  Preaching,  administering 
the  Sacraments,  or  doing  any  other  act  of  Ministerial  Office 
in  his  own  person ;  but  he  leaveth  the  performance  of  all 
such  acts,  of  either  sort,  unto  such  persons  as  the  said 
several  respective  powers  do  of  divine  right  belong  unto  ; 
viz.  of  the  one  sort  to  a  Bishop,  and  of  the  other  to  all 
Priests. 

All  power,  to  the  exercise  whereof  our  Bishops  have  pre- 
tended, cometh  under  one  of  the  two  heads ;  of  Order,  or  of 
Jurisdiction. 

The  power  of  Order  consisteth  partly  in  Preaching  the 
Word,  and  other  Offices  of  Public  Worship,  common  to  them 
with  their  fellow-ministers ;  partly  in  Ordaining  Priests  and 
Deacons,  admitting  them  to  their  Sacred  Cures,  and  other 
things  of  like  nature,  peculiar  to  them  alone ;  and  is  of 
divine  right. 

The  power  of  Jurisdiction  is  either  internal,  in  retaining 
aaid  remitting  sins,  inforo  conscientios,  common  to  them  also, 
for  the  substance  of  the  authority,  though  with  some  dif- 
ference of  degree,  with  other  ministers ;  or  external,  for  the 
outward  government  of  the  Church  in  some  parts  thereof, 
peculiar  to  them  alone. 

That  external  power  is  either  directive  in  prescribing  rules 
and  orders  to  those  under  their  jurisdictions,  and  making 
Canons  and  Constitutions  to  be  observed  by  the  Church ; 
wherein  the  inferior  Clergy,  by  their  representatives  in  Con- 
vocation, have  their  voice,  as  well  as  the  Bishops ;  and  both 
dependency  upon  the  King ;  for  they  cannot  either  meet 
without  the  writ,  or  treat  without  his  commission,  or  establish 
without  his  royal  assent. 

Or  it  is  judiciary  and  coercive  in  giving  sentence,  in  foro 
exteriori,  in  matters  of  Ecclesiastical  cognizance. 

Of  these  powers  some  branches,  not  only  in  the  exercise 
thereof,  but  even  in  the  very  substance  of  the  power  itself 
(as,  namely,  that  of  external  jurisdiction  coercive),  are  by  the 
Laws  declared,  and  by  the  Clergy  acknowledged  to  be  wholly 


Miscellanies. 


and  entirely  derived  from  the  King,  as  the  sole  fountain  of 
all  Authority  of  external  Jurisdiction,  whether  spiritual  or 
temporal,  within  the  realm. — Bishop  Sanderson. 

Richard  Hooker,  Laws  of  Eccl.  Polity,  viii.  8,  thus  writes, 
"  As  the  person  of  the  King  may  for  just  considerations, 
even  where  the  cause  is  civil,  be  notwithstanding  withdrawn 
from  the  seat  of  judgment,  and  others  under  his  authority  be 
fit,  he  unfit  himself,  to  judge  ;  so  the  considerations  for 
which  it  were  haply  not  convenient  for  kings  to  sit  and  give 
sentence  in  spiritual  courts,  where  causes  ecclesiastical  are 
usually  debated,  can  be  no  bar  to  that  force  and  efficacy, 
which  their  sovereign  power  hath  over  those  very  consis- 
tories, and  for  which  we  hold  without  any  exception  that  all 
Courts  are  the  King's." 

And  see  Bishop  Andrewes,  Tortura  Torti,  p.  380,  where  is 
probably  the  clearest  and  most  comprehensive  statement  of 
the  nature,  offices,  and  limits  of  the  exercise  of  the  Royal 
Supremacy. 

The  whole  may  be  summed  up  as  follows  : — 

1.  All  authority  is  from  God  alone. 

2.  In  England,  the  Sovereign  is,  under  God,  "  supreme 
over  all  persons,  spiritual  and  temporal ;  and  in  all  causes, 
Ecclesiastical  and  Civil." 

3.  The  Sovereign  is  the  Fountain  of  Justice. 

All  Courts,  strictly  speaking,  are  Courts  of  the  Sovereign, 
and  derive  authority,  as  far  as  it  is  external  and  co-active, 
from  the  Sovereign. 

4.  The  Sovereign  dispenses  justice,  in  Diocesan  Courts, 
by  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese,  who  has  been  accustomed  to 
delegate  his  authority  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  Diocese. 

5.  The  Sovereign  dispenses  justice,  in  the  Court  of  the 
Province,  by  the  Metropolitan,  who  has  delegated  his  autho- 
rity to  the  Dean  of  the  Court  of  Arches. 

6.  The  Sovereign,  finally,  receives  Appeals  in  Ecclesias- 
tical Causes,  in  the  Judicial  Committee  of  Privy  Council, 
which  has  no  power  of  deciding  causes,  and  does  not  pro- 
nounce any  judicial  sentence,  but  gives  advice  on  the  causes 
brought  before  it  to  the  Sovereign,  who,  after  hearing  the 
advice  of  her  Councillors  and  Prelates,  pronounces  final 


Appeal  to  Anglican  Divines. 


153 


sentence  thereupon  in  person — in  Her  Majesty's  Privy 
Council. 

Bishop  Andrewes  thus  writes,  page  3G5,  "  There  ought  to 
be  conjunction  between  the  Realm  and  the  Church,  but  not 
confusion.  As  they  have  distinct  causes,  so  they  ought  to 
have  separate  Courts  ;  but  the  Church,  not  less  than  the 
Realm,  ought  to  hold  her  Courts  under  the  King,  by  whose 
authority  Judges  preside ;  Amariah  in  the  Courts  of  the 
Church,  Zebadiah  in  the  Courts  of  the  Realm  (see  2  Chron. 
xix.  11),  but  both  by  command  of  the  King.'" 

Bishop  Stillingfleet  thus  writes  (Ecclesiastical  Cases,  ii. 
99) : — "  As  in  temporal  matters  the  King's  supreme  authority 
is  exercised  in  his  ordinary  Courts,  so  likewise  in  Ecclesias- 
tical Courts,  which  derive  their  jurisdiction  from  the  King 
as  supreme."  Bishop  Stillingfleet  uses  the  term  jurisdiction, 
because  (in  the  words  of  Bishop  Andrewes,  Tortura  Torti,  p. 
380)  "  we  do  not  attribute  to  the  King  the  power  of  the  Keys, 
i.e.  of  spiritual  censures  and  excommunication  ;"  but  we,  as 
Francis  Mason  says  (de  Minister.  Angl.  iii.  c.  3,  p.  271), 
hold  that  the  "  King  may  command  those,  who  have  that 
power,  to  use  it  rightly." 

In  the  above  quotations  from  Bishop  Sanderson,  Richard 
Hooker,  Bishop  Andrewes,  and  Bishop  Stillingfleet,  we 
have  the  opinions  of  our  greatest  divines  of  the  16th  and 
17th  centuries. 

Let  me  add  some  testimonies  of  eminent  Laymen. 

King  Charles  I.  (in  his  First  Paper  at  the  Isle  of  Wight) 
thus  speaks  : — "  In  former  times,  under  Pagan  Princes,  the 
Church  was  a  distinct  body  of  itself,  divided  from  the  Com- 
monwealth, and  was  governed  by  its  own  rulers."  He  pro- 
ceeds to  exemplify  this  by  reference  to  the  acts  of  Christian 
Bishops  in  those  times,  and  then  goes  on  to  say  : — "  After 
that  the  Church,  under  Christian  Princes,  began  to  be  incor- 
porated in  the  Commonwealth  (whereupon  there  must  of 
necessity  follow  a  complication  of  the  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical 
Powers) ;  the  jurisdiction  of  Bishops,  in  the  outward  exercise 
of  it,  was  subordinate  unto  and  limitable  by  the  supreme 
Civil  Power,  and  hath  been,  and  is  at  this  day,  so  acknow- 
ledged by  the  Bishops  of  the  realm." 


154 


Miscellanies. 


Chief  Justice  Coke  (4  Inst.  321)  : — "  Those  who  have 
spiritual  jurisdiction,  as  Archbishops  and  Bishops,  are  the 
King's  Judges." 

Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon  (Religion  and  Policy,  Intro- 
duction, pp.  1  —  7) : — "  Our  Kings  cannot  prescribe  what  Laws 
they  please  contrary  to  the  law  of  Nature  and  of  God,  so 
they  cannot  impose  what  religion  they  please  contrary  to 
what  He  hath  enjoined;  but  the  way  to  propagate  the  same 
is  committed  to  the  Sovereign  Power,  to  provide  for  the 
peace  of  Church  and  State." 

Sir  Roger  Tivysden,  in  his  learned  Vindication  of  the 
English  Reformation,  says,  p.  115: — "When  we  say  that 
the  Prince  as  the  principal,  without  whom  nothing  is  done, 
may  be  rightly  termed  head  in  the  act  of  reformation,  our 
meaning  is  not  that  he  will  deal  in  points  of  Ecclesiastical 
cognizance  without  the  advice  of  his  Bishops  and  other 
learned  of  the  Clergy;  we  know  in  things  proper,  Joshua 
is  to  take  counsel  of  Eleazar  (Num.  xxvii.  21),  and  the  Kings 
of  this  nation  have  ever  done  so." 


DIOCESAN  SYNODS,  AND  DIOCESAN  CONFERENCES. 


A  Diocesan  Synod  was  held  in  the  Cathedral  Church  of 
Lincoln  on  the  20th  of  September,  1871.1 

The  memorial  which  I  received  from  more  than  four  hun- 
dred and  thirty  of  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  requesting  me 
to  hold  a  Diocesan  Synod,  led  me  to  consider  carefully  what 
the  right  constitution  of  a  Diocesan  Synod  is,  and  what  is 
the  proper  manner  and  order  of  holding  such  a  Synod,  and 
what  are  the  rules  for  its  proceedings,  and  the  functions  to 
be  discharged  by  it. 

Happily  some  learned  treatises  have  been  written  on 
Diocesan  Synods,  which  much  lighten  our  labour,  and  may 
give  us  clear  views  with  respect  to  them.  I  refer  especially 
to  the  works  of  Lambertini,2  Gavanti,3  Thomassinus,4  Van 
Espen,5  Martene,0  La  Luzerne,7  and  others ;  and,  especially 
in  our  own  country,  the  chapters  on  Diocesan  Synods  in  the 
"  Reformatio  Legum,"  drawn  up  by  Archbishop  Cranmer 

1  The  Acts  of  the  Synod  may  he  seen  in  the  Lincoln  Diocesan  Calendar 
for  1872,  p.  101. 

2  "  De  Synodo  Dicecesana  libri  tredecim,"  2  vols.  4to.  Ferrar,  1760. 
This  work  may  also  be  found  in  Migne's  "  Theologise  Cursus  Cornpletus," 
torn.  xxv.  p.  801.    Paris,  1840. 

3  Gavanti,  "B.  Praxis  exactissima  Dicecesanae  Synodi ;  "  Aug.  Vind., 
1763,  in  his  "  Thesaurus  Sacrorum  Rituum,"  torn.  iii.  This  is  the  most 
complete  work  on  the  constitution  and  proceedings  of  Diocesan  Synods. 

*  Thomassinus,  "  Vetus  et  Nova  Eccl.  Disciplina,"  pars  ii.  lib.  iii.  cap. 
63,  vol.  vi.  p.  555,  ed.  Mogunt.  1787. 

5  Van  Espen,  "  Jus  Eccles."  pars  i.  tit.  xviii.  p.  105,  ed.  Colon,  1748. 

6  Martene,  "  De  Antiquis  Ecclesiaj  Ritibus,"  lib.  iii.  cap.  i.  torn.  ii. 
p.  311. 

7  De  la  Luzerne,  "  Droits  et  Devoirs  des  Evoques  et  des  Protres," 
Paris,  1844. 


Miscellanies. 


and  his  associates  in  the  reign  of  King  Edward  VI.,9  and  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  the  writings  of 
Dr.  Field/  Archbishop  Wake,1  Bishop  Kennett,  and  the 

8  "  Eef.  Legum,"  cap.  19—23,  "  The  work  and  words  were  mainly 
Cranmer's  own." — Strype's  "  Cranmer,"  p.  134. 

9  Dean  Field  on  tbe  "  Church,"  p.  508. 

1  Archbishop  Wake  on  the  "  State  of  the  Church."  Lond.  1703,  pp. 
23,  24.  He  writes  as  follows  : — "  The  Diocesan  Synods  of  the  Bishops 
and  Clergy,  of  every  Diocess,  by  their  joynt  counsel  and  authority  (com- 
mitted to  them  by  Christ)  order'd  the  affairs  of  their  respective  Diocesses 
before  any  other  Councils  were  settled,  or  assembled  in  the  Church. — 

"  That  the  Bishop  of  every  Diocess  has,  by  Divine  Commission,  a  power 
to  govern  the  Church  of  Christ,  over  which  he  is  placed  ;  and  in  order 
thereunto,  to  call  together  the  Presbyters  which  minister  under  him,  was 
the  constant  sense  of  all  the  ancient  Councils  and  Fathers  of  the  Church. 
They  have  not  only  allow'd  of  this  power,  but  have  directed  the  exercise 
of  it,  and  commanded  the  Bishop,  from  time  to  time,  to  put  it  in  exe- 
cution. 

How  often  every  Bishop  was  obliged  to  assemble  bis  Diocesan  Synod, 
the  Canons  of  the  Church  inform  us:*  which  generally  ordained  that 
these  Councils  should  be  held  at  least  once  every  year,  and  obliged  the 
Clergy,  under  the  severest  penalties,  to  appear  at  them.  In  the  ancient 
formulary  for  holding  of  these  Synods  f  among  us,  the  order  is,  that  they 
should  be  convened  twice  in  the  year ;  and  this  seems  to  have  then  been 
the  ancient  measure  of  them.  The  Synod  of  CalcythJ  settled  it  betimes 
here ;  and  if  we  may  rely  upon  the  "Worcester  copy  of  the  Synod  of 
Winchester,  anno  1076, §  we  must  look  upon  this  to  have  there  again  had 
a  public  determination.  'Tis  true  in  the  Cotton  MS.  the  decree  is  more 
general ;  that  every  Bishop  should  hold  a  Synod  every  year,  and  yet, 
above  200  years  after,  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham, || 
anno  1312,  the  proportion  of  two  yearly  Synods  was  not  only  established 
as  a  rule  for  that  Bishoprick,  but  was  said  to  have  been  established 
according  to  the  Canonical  Sanctions,  which  therefore  seem  to  have  yet 
continued  in  a  general  force  among  us.  But  the  common  direction  of  the 
Canon  Law  ^[  was  to  have  such  Sj'nods  held  once  in  the  year ;  and  this 
Lynwood  **  seems  to  deliver  as  the  rule  of  our  Church  too  ;  and  there  is 
this  reason  to  believe  that  by  this  time  it  was  become  so,  that  when  the 


*  See  Spelman,  Concil.  vol.  ii.  p.  1. 

f  Concil.  Antissiod.  Ann.  571,  Can.  7. 

%  Spelm.  Cone.  torn.  i.  p.  293,  Can.  3,  Ann.  787. 

§  Apud  Spelm.  Ib.  p.  12. 

||  Spelm.  Concil.  vol.  ii.  p.  436,  cap.  3. 

^[  Dist.  18,  c.  16,  18,  q.  2,  c.  Abbates,  Concil.  Arelat.  vi.  can.  4. 
**  Provincial,  lib.  i.  tit.  14,  De  Maj.  and  Ob.  cap.  Item  statuimus, 
Voce  Synodis. 


On  Diocesan  Synods — Abp.  Wake.         i  5  7 


great  work  of  Wilkins/  containing  the  acts  of  Diocesan  and 
other  Synods  in  England  from  the  earliest  times ;  to  which 

Reformation  was  made  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Canons,  then  in  force  in  this 
Church,*  this  was  the  Proportion  whicli  we  find  was  intended  to  have 
been  continued  by  those,  to  whom  the  review  of  those  Canons  was  com- 
mitted. 

"  To  this  Synod  all  the  Clergy  who  had  any  Benefice  within  the  Diocess, 
were  obliged  to  come  :  f  and  so  were  the  Regulars  too,  as  well  Abbots  as 
Monks  ;  excepting  only  those  who,  in  process  of  time,  were  exempted  from 
the  Episcopal  Jurisdiction.  And  even  those.J  if  they  had  any  Benefices, 
by  reason  whereof  they  became  subject  to  the  Authority  of  the  Bishop, 
were  obliged  upon  the  account  of  such  their  Benefices  to  come  likewise. 
In  the  Constitutions  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham,§  the  Members  of  these 
Synods  are  thus  computed  :  Abbots,  Priors,  Archdeacons,  Provosts,  Vicars, 
and  Parochial  Chaplains:  and  that  this  was  nothing  peculiar  to  that 
Diocess,  the  Reformation  of  our  Ecclesiastical  Law  ||  shews,  which  was 
gathered  out  of  the  Canon  Laws,  then  in  practice  among  us  ;  and  (omitting 
only  the  Regulars,  who  were  now  suppress'd)  enumerates  the  rest  much 
after  the  same  manner,  the  Bishop  with  his  Presbyters,  Parochial 
Ministers,  Vicars  and  Clerks. 

"  The  first  thing  that  was  usually  done  on  these  occasions,  was  for  the 
Bishop  to  make  his  Synodical  Enquiries  ;  \  of  which  the  ancient  forms 
still  remain  to  us.  Then  the  Synodical  causes  were  heard.  Every  one 
who  had  any  proper  complaint  to  make,  was  permitted  to  speak ;  and  for 
this  end,  not  only  the  Clergy,  but  the  Laity  too,  were  suffered  to  be 
present  at  these  Synods,  and  to  speak  in  them. 

"  In  these  Synods,  the  Bishop  was  wont  to  declare  to  his  Clergy  what 
had  been  decreed  in  the  Larger  Synods  of  the  Province  :  **  In  these,  he 
was  directed  to  charge  his  Clergy  to  have  a  care  of  their  Ministry,  and  to 
lay  before  them  the  main  branches  of  that  Duty,  which  was  incumbent 
upon  them  in  their  respective  places  to  fulfil. 

"  And  lastly,  in  these  Synods,  the  Bishop  published  his  own  Diocesan 
Constitutions :  ft  which  being  read,  and  agreed  to  by  the  Synod,  were 

*  Reformat.  Leg.  Eccles.,  De  Eccles.  and  Ministr.  Ejus.  cap.  20. 
f  Capitul.  vol.  i.  col.  171.    Synod.  Vernens.  cap.  8.   Lynwood,  I.e.  Voce 
Synodis. 

X  Concil.  Antissiod.  can.  vii.    Synod.  Mogunt.  1,  can.  xiv. 

§  Ubi  supr.  cap.  3.  ||  Loc.  sup.  cit.  cap.  10. 

\  Vid.  Not.  Baluz.  in  Reg.  p.  531,  532.  Reform.  Legg.  Eccl.  I.e.  cap. 
22.  Vid.  Ord.  Rom.,  Bibl.  PP.  torn.  13,  p.  742,  743.  Spelm.  Concil. 
vol.  ii.  p.  1,  2,  &c.    Ord.  MS.  in  Bibl.  Cott.  Tiberius,  c.  1. 

**  Dist.  xviii.  Epist.  Bonifac.  ad  Cuthbert.  Arch,  apud  Spelm.  t.  1, 
p.  238.  Lynwood,  de  Consuet.  lib.  i.  tit.  3,  cap.  Hujus  autem,  p.  18,  b. 
Ord.  Rom.  loc.  supr.  cit.  Baluz.  in  Reg.  p.  532.  Ord.  Spelm.  torn.  2, 
p.  1.    Ord.  MS.  supr. 

ft  Leo  iv.  Epist.  ad  Episc.  Britannia;,  apud  Labb.  Gondii,  torn.  8,  col.  31. 


Miscellci7iics. 


may  be  added  some  excellent  treatises 3  on  this  subject, 
"which  have  appeared  in  our  own  time. 

from  thenceforth  of  force  within  the  Diocess ;  provided  they  were  not 
contrary  to  what  had  been  decreed  in  some  superiour  Council  of  the 
Province.  Of  these  we  have  several  collections  already  published  in  the 
volumes  of  our  Councils,  and  many  more  there  are  still  remaining  in  the 
Registers  of  our  Churches,  whieh  witness  the  same  to  us. 

"  How  they  proceeded  in  the  celebration  of  these  Synods,  the  ancient 
Orders  framed  for  the  holding  of  them,  inform  us.  The  Clergy  in  solemn 
Procession  came  to  the  Church  where  they  were  to  meet,  at  the  day  and 
hour  appointed  by  the  Bishop,  and  sate  according  to  the  time  of  their 
Ordination.*  Then  the  Deacons  and  Laity  (even  women  not  excepted) 
were  admitted.  The  Bishop  (or,  in  his  absence,  his  Vicar)  being  come  in, 
and  the  stated  Prayers  ended  ;  made  a  solemn  exhortation  to  them.  Then 
(by  the  Roman  Order)  a  Sermon  was  to  be  preach'd  ;  after  which,  if  any 
Clergyman  had  any  complaint  to  make,  or  anything  else  to  offer,  he  was 
heard  by  the  Synod. 

"  The  Complaints  of  the  Clergy  being  over,  the  Laity,  in  the  next  place, 
were  permitted  to  make  theirs.  Then  the  Bishop  proposed  his  Diocesan 
Constitutions  to  them.  After  which,  if  nothing  further  rernain'd  to  be 
done,  a  large  Synodical  Exhortation,  in  the  way  of  an  Injunction,  to  his 
Clergy ;  and  so  all  concluded  with  solemn  Prayers  suited  to  the  Business 
for  which  they  were  assembled. 

"  For  the  Despatch  of  all  this,  the  common  time  allow'd,  was  Three  or 
Four  days  :  and  a  several  Rubric  was  Establish'd  to  direct  the  proceeding 
in  every  one  of  them.  But  if  the  Business  of  the  Synod  could  be  done 
in  lesser  time,  the  Assembly  was  to  be  contimied  no  longer  than  was 
necessary  for  the  finishing  the  Affairs  that  came  before  it. 

"  Such  was  the  Nature  of  these  Councils  ;  which  accordingly  were  con- 
tinued in  Use  among  us  to  the  time  of  King  Henry  ths  Eighth.  The 
Names  by  which  they  were  called  were  various,  sometimes  Concilium 
Episcopii  and  Concilium  Episcopate  from  the  Authority  which  the  Bishop 
had,  both  to  call  and  to  preside  in  them." 

2  "  Concilia  Magna?  Britanniae,"  4  vols,  folio.  London,  1737.  See 
there,  i.  p.  7 ;  iv.  pp.  228,  537,  608. 

3  Particularlj'  the  learned  work  entitled  "  England's  Sacred  Synods," 
by  the  Rev.  James  Way  land  Joyce.  London,  1855.  Also  the  Letter  of 
the  late  Chancellor  Massingberd  ("  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  on 
a  Diocesan  Synod,"  18G9),  and  the  "  Paper  on  Diocesan  Synods,"  by  a 
person  to  whom  the  Synod  of  this  Province,  and  the  Church  of  England, 
owe  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude,  the  Ven.  Edward  Bickersteth,  D.D.,  Prolo- 
cutor of  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury,  and  Dean  of  Lichfield.  London, 
1867. 

Ord.  Rom.  in  Pontificali,  lib.  iii.  fol.  189,  Edit.  Venet.  An.  1561.  Lyn- 
wood,  de  Appell.  i.  1,  2,  tit.  7,  cap.  In  Consilio,  verb,  statutum,  Francisc. 
Leo  prax.  for.  Eccl.  par.  2.  cap.  9,  sect.  15. 
*  Vid.  Ord.  MSS.  Bibl.  Cotton,  supr.  cit. 


Diocesan  Sy?wds. 


159 


It  will  be  evident  from  the  examination  of  such  works  as 
these,  that  Diocesan  Synods  were  among  the  earliest4 
Councils  of  the  Christian  Church.  They  were  more  ancient 
than  Provincial  Synods.  A  Diocese  is  prior  to  a  Province, 
which  is  a  group  of  dioceses.  Some  have  recognized  an 
image  of  a  Diocesan  Synod  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles/ 
where  we  see  St.  James,  the  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and  all 
the  elders  with  him,  offering  their  fraternal  counsel  to 
St.  Paul.  For  many  centuries  Diocesan  Synods  rendered 
great  service  to  Christendom.  In  the  Latin  Church,  as 
Roman  Catholic  writers  themselves  deplore,6  they  have  been 
paralyzed  by  various  influences — especially  by  the  growth 
of  the  Roman  papacy.  The  Roman  Pontiff  aspires  to  be 
the  Universal  Bishop,  and  claims  the  world  for  his  diocese ; 
and  now  that  the  attribute  of  personal  infallibility  has  been 
ascribed  to  him,7  it  may  well  be  asked,  What  can  be  the  use 
of  a  Diocesan  Council,  or  any  other,  to  advise  with  him,  or 
to  give  authority  to  his  decrees  ?  In  our  own  Church 
Diocesan  Synods  (properly  so  called),  have  not  been  held 
recently.8 

4  Lambertini,  i.  p.  7  ;  Thomassinus,  vi.  p.  522  ;  Bishop  Kennett,  "  Eccl. 
Synods,"  ii.  p.  254. 

5  Acts  xxi.  18  ;  Lambertini,  i.  p.  6. 

6  Gavanti,  p.  2.  Although  by  tbe  Council  of  Trent  (sess.  24,  cap.  2) 
Bishops  are  required  to  hold  Synods  annually,  "  quod  heu  !  negligitur," 
says  Gavanti. 

7  In  the  Vatican  Council,  on  July  18,  1870. 

8  The  Synod  held  at  Exeter,  on  June  25  aud  26, 1851,  which  consisted 
merely  of  delegates,  could  hardly  be  called  a  Diocesan  Synod  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term,  as  will  hereafter  appear. 

Its  proceedings  are  described  in  the  "  Ecclesiastical  Gazette  "  for  July, 
1851,  p.  14.  In  the  same  volume,  p.  62,  may  be  seen  a  legal  opinion 
condemning  them  :  but  if  any  one  imagines  that  Bishops  are  estopped  by 
the  Act  of  Submission,  23  Henry  VIII.,  c.  10,  which  relates  to  Provincial 
Convocations,  from  holding  Diocesan  Synods  without  the  Royal  Writ,  he 
may  refer  to  subsequent  Acts — 28  Henry  VIII.,  c.  10,  sect.  4;  31  Henry 
VIII.,  c.  14;  2  &  3  Edw.  VI.  c.  1. — where  Diocesan  Synods  are 
supposed  to  be  held  ;  and  the  Canons  of  1603,  Can.  cxix.,  and  to  the 
Chapters  in  the  Reformatio  Leffum,  framed  in  Edward  VI. 's  reign,  pre- 
scribing Diocesan  Synods  to  be  held  yearly.  The  whole  question  is  well 
treated  by  Mr.  Joyce  in  his  Sacred  Synods,  p.  40.  See  also  "  Hansard's 
Parliamentary  Debates,  vol.  cxvi.  3rd  Series,  pp.  419 — 425,  where  Lord 
llussell,  then  Prime  Minister,  expressed  the  same  opinion,  viz.  that  the 


i6o 


JMiscellajiies. 


Who  are  the  persons  that  have  a  right  to  be  convened 
to  a  Diocesan  Synod  ? 

To  this  question  it  may  be  replied,  that  all  Priests  and 
Deacons,9  exercising  ministerial  functions  in  a  diocese,  are 
entitled  to  a  place  in  a  Diocesan  Synod.1  "  Let  nothing  be 
done  without  the  Bishop  " 2  was  a  maxim  of  the  Primitive 
Church.  But  "  let  not  the  Bishop  act  without  his  pres- 
byters" was  a  rule  of  equal  authority.3  The  beautiful 
simile  of  one  of  St.  John's  disciples — St.  Ignatius,  the 
Bishop  and  Martyr  of  Antioch — happily  combines  these 
precepts  in  one:  "Let  the  presbjters  be  joined  together 
with  the  Bishop,  as  the  chords  of  a  harp,  to  make  sweet 
music  to  God."  4 

It  is  true  that  in  some  cases,  on  account  of  penalties 
levied  on  presbyters  for  not  appearing  at  a  Diocesan  Synod, 
they  claimed  a  right  to  send  proxies ; 5  but  it  is  a  principle 
laid  down  by  the  best  writers  on  the  subject,  that  a  Council 
formed  by  a  process  of  delegation  cannot  rightly  be  called  a 
Diocesan  Synod. 

With  regard  to  the  Laity,  it  appears  that  they  also  were 
invited  to  Diocesan  Synods,  which  had  a  judicial  as  well  as 
deliberative  character,  and  were  Ecclesiastical  Courts,  as 
well  as  Church  Councils.  The  purpose  for  which  the  laity 
were  called,  was  that  they  might  state  grievances,  or,  in 
modern  ecclesiastical  language,  "  make  presentments "  of 
those  things  which  required  amendment  in  their  parishes.6 

Act  of  Submission  did  not  relate  to  Diocesan  Synods,  which  have  never 
at  any  time  been  convened  by  the  King's  Writ,  but  were  always  called 
together  by  the  Bishop.  Diocesan  Synods  have  been  summoned  and  held 
by  English  Bishops  since  the  Reformation,  and  Canons  been  promulged 
in  them. 

9  As  to  the  presence  of  deacons,  see  Thomassinus,  p.  515 ;  Martene, 
lib.  iii.  cap.  i.  pp.  312 — 314.  Not  all  deacons,  but  some  who  were  specially 
chosen,  were  admitted.    Thomassinus,  p.  522. 

1  See  Van  Espen,  p.  106  ;  Thomassinus,  pp.517 — 519;  Lambertini, 
pp.  81 — 100  ;  Gavanti,  pp.  3,  4. 

-  S.  Ignat.  "  ad  Magnes."  c.  4  and  c.  7 ;  Trail,  c.  4  and  c.  7  ;  Smyrn. 
c.  8  and  c.  9;  Phil.  c.  8. 

3  Cp.  S.  Ignat.  "  ad  Eph."  c.  4  and  c.  5 ;  Trail,  c.  7. 

*  S.  Ignat.  "  ad  Eph."  c.  4. 

5  Van  Espen,  p.  105  ;  Gavanti,  p.  23. 

6  Gavanti,  pp.  8 — 11 ;  Van  Espen,  p.  106.    When  the  Synod  lasted 


Diocesan  Synods  and  Conferences  differ.       1 6 1 


We  may  recognize  a  remnant  of  this  usage  in  the  word 
"  Sidesmen,"  or  "  Synodsmen,  "  the  ancient  "  testes  Syno- 
dales,"  and  in  the  functions  which  these  lay  officers  of  the 
Church  may  lawfully  perform  in  episcopal  and  archidiaconal 
Visitations ;  which  still  preserve  some  vestiges  of  ancient 
Diocesan  Synods. 

These  are  the  things  which  are  the  proper  matters  to 
be  treated  of  in  Diocesan  Synods/  in  their  deliberative 
character.  The  sacredness  of  the  subjects  appointed  for 
their  consideration  was  indicated  by  the  name  given  to  the 
Synod,  which  was  called  a  "  sacred  assembly  and  by  the 
place  in  which  the  Synod  was  held — usually  the  Cathedral 
Church, — and  even  by  the  sacred  attire 8  of  those  who  were 
assembled  in  it. 

The  proper  place  of  the  laity  is  in  other  Church  Councils, 
not  less  useful,  but  of  a  different  kind,  namely,  Diocesan 
Conferences;  of  which  we  shall  speak  hereafter.  Let 
Diocesan  Synods  be  kept  distinct  from  Diocesan  Con- 
ferences ; 9  let  there  be  no  confusion  between  them ;  let  the 
clergy  do  their  proper  work,  and  the  laity  theirs ;  then  we 
shall  tread  safely  in  the  ancient  paths,  while  at  the  same 
time  we  adjust  ourselves  to  the  requirements  of  modern 
times. 

These  conclusions  will  appear  still  more  reasonable  when 
we  proceed  to  examine  more  closely  the  proper  mode  of 
proceeding  in  Diocesan  Synods,  and  the  peculiar  functions 
to  be  performed  by  them. 

three  days  the  "  querelas  laicorum  "  were  listened  to  on  the  second  day. 
Cp.  Lambertini,  pp.  113 — 117  ;  and  Dean  Field  on  the  "  Church,"  p.  508 ; 
and  Wilkins'  "Concilia,"  iv.  p.  784. 

7  "  Dicecesana  Synodus  est  congregatio  legitinia,  quam  facit  Episcopus 
cum  clericis  sibi  subditis,  in  sua  dicecesi,  de  iisque  in  ea  tractat,  quae  curse 
sua?  pastorali  incumbunt." — Gavanti,  p.  1. 

8  The  Bishop  was  to  be  in  his  Episcopal  dress,  the  clergy  in  surplices. — 
Gavanti,  pp.  19,  23,  25;  Thomassinus,  p.  524;  Lambertini,  i.  pp.  124 — 
128. 

9  The  words  of  Thomassinus,  "  De  Synodo  Dicecesana  "  (p.  520)  deserve 
careful  attention  :  "  Plures  babes  conventus  ab  Episcopis  convocatos  " 
(Diocesan  Conferences)  "  in  quibus  et  laicis  locus  erat,  potissimum  vero 
nobilibus,  quo  et  hi  conventus  distabant  a  Synodis,"  where  (he  adds)  the 
laity  did  not  take  a  deliberative  part. 

VOL  III.  M. 


162 


Miscellanies. 


The  holding  of  a  Diocesan  Synod  was  a  holy  work.  It 
was  a  solemn  act  of  religious  worship,  performed  by  the 
Bishop  and  Clergy  of  the  diocese  in  the  Church  of  God.  In 
it  they  joined  in  the  profession  of  the  same  faith — in  the 
Nicene  Creed ;  in  it  they  sang  praises  to  God — in  the 
"Te  Deurn,"  and  in  certain  Psalms  appointed  for  the 
purpose ; 1  in  it  they  invoked  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost — 
in  the  "  Veni  Creator ;  "  in  it  they  were  united  together  at 
the  Holy  Communion. 

One  of  the  duties  of  a  Diocesan  Synod  was  to  make 
known  and  promulge  canons  and  constitutions  which  had 
been  already  agreed  upon  in  the  Provincial  Council. 2 

Another  use  of  a  Diocesan  Synod  was  to  give  authori- 
tative utterance  and  public  assent  to  what,  after  the  Bishop 
had  previously  taken  counsel  with  elder  and  graver  pres- 
byters of  the  diocese/  especially  with  the  Capitular  Body — 
the  "  Senatus  Episcopi" — had  approved  itself  to  his 
judgment. 

These  being  the  principal  functions  of  a  Diocesan  Synod, 
it  may  readily  be  supposed  that  in  the  first  sixteen  centuries 
after  Christ  it  never  was  the  custom  to  bring  questions 
before  the  Synod  for  the  purpose  of  eager  debate  and  con- 
troversy, and  with  a  view  to  divisions  of  the  clergy  into 
majorities  and  minorities.  And  therefore,  though  Diocesan 
Synods  sometimes  numbered  as  many  as  nine  hundred 
presbyters  assembled  together,  yet  there  was  no  discord  or 
confusion  in  them. 

During  sixteen  hundred  years  after  Christ,  a  Diocesan 
Synod  was  called  the  Synod  of  the  Bishop.4  The  canons 
and  constitutions  published  therein  were  said  to  be  pro- 
mulged  by  the  Bishop.  It  never  occurred  to  the  mind  of 
ancient  Christendom,  that  the  Bishops  of  Christ's  Church, 
seated  in  their  Cathedral  Churches,  would  enter  into  the 
lists  of  controversy  with  the  clergy  of  their  dioceses,  divided 

'  Psalm  xxxiii.,  lxvii.,  lxviii.,  lxxxiv.,  lxxxvii.,  exxxiii ;  Gavanti.  p,  25. 
-  Van  Espen,  p.  106. 
s  Lambertini,  i.  p.  227. 

4  See  Van  Espen,  p.  106  ;  Gavanti,  pp.  19,  20 ;  Thomassinus,  p.  519  ; 
Lambertini,  p.  134 ;  ii.  pp.  203,  210,  213. 


Proceedings  of  a  Diocesan  Synod.  163 

into  opposite  camps.5  This  was  not  their  view  of  Episcopacy. 
In  their  eyes  the  Bishop  was  a  Father  in  God ;  and  while  on 
the  one  hand  it  was  supposed  that  the  clergy  would  treat 
their  spiritual  father  with  filial  reverence,  it  was  anticipated 
on  the  other  that  he  would  endeavour  to  rule  with  parental 
love,  and  that  he  would  not  obtrude  his  own  private  opinions 
on  a  reluctant  clergy,  but  that  he  would  pray  fervently  to 
God  for  grace  and  guidance,  and  give  himself  to  diligent 
study  and  devout  meditation,  and  would  seek  to  lead  the 
clergy  by  wise  counsels  and  gentle  persuasion  to  right  con- 
clusions ;  and  with  their  help  would  embody  and  concentrate 
those  conclusions  in  synodical  utterances,  which  would  have 
great  force  and  weight  by  reason  of  previous  consultation 
and  general  subsequent  assent. 

Few  things,  we  may  humbly  believe,  are  more  pleasing  to 
the  holy  angels  and  to  the  God  of  angels,  than  to  see  the 
Clergy  of  a  diocese  joined  together  with  the  Bishop  in  prayer, 
and  praise,  and  Holy  Communion,  in  the  Mother  Church  of 
the  diocese ;  and,  if  it  may  be  by  God's  grace,  in  the  unani- 
mous adoption  of  such  measures  as  may  tend  to  promote 
His  glory  and  the  eternal  salvation  of  His  people. 

Such  harmonious  action  as  this  has,  by  its  very  quietness, 
great  power.  It  shows  the  Clergy  to  the  world  as  an  united 
body,  and  as  strong  by  union.  It  has  the  blessed  effect  of 
rescuing  the  matters  agreed  upon  from  the  atmosphere  of 
party,  and  of  placing  them  in  the  calmer  light  of  general 
consent.  Whenever  the  Clergy  of  a  diocese  agree  together 
on  the  course  of  action  to  be  taken  in  any  given  matter, 
there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  those  invidious  comparisons 
between  one  class  of  clergy  and  another,  which  engender  so 
many  heart-burnings  and  bickerings,  and  cause  so  much 
distraction  and  weakness,  and  expose  the  Church  to  the 
derision  of  her  enemies,  as  a  house  divided  against  itself,  at 
a  time  when  the  storm  is  gathering  around  us,  and  when  we 
need,  if  we  are  to  stand,  to  be  firmly  built  together  upon  a 
rock. 

There  can  be  little  doubt,  that  if  the  questions  concerning 
the  ritual  of  the  church  had  been  calmly  considered  by  all 
5  Lambortini,  ii.  p.  196;  Thomassinus,  p.  517. 
M  2 


164 


Miscellanies. 


the  clergy  of  a  Diocese  in  a  Diocesan  Synod,  and  if  after 
careful  deliberation  they  had  been  decided  there,  such  a 
decision  would  have  had  great  moral  weight  with  the  Clergy, 
and  a  general  agreement  would  have  been  the  result  and  the 
painful,  tedious  and  irritating'  litigation  on  these  questions 
would  have  been  avoided,  which  have  done  so  much  mischief 
to  the  Church. 

But  in  addition  to  the  Diocesan  Synod,  we  need  a  Diocesan 
Conference,  in  which  our  lay  brethren  may  be  associated 
with  us,  and  in  which  they  may  deliberate  with  us,  not  on 
controverted  questions  of  Theology,  or  on  the  settled  Articles 
of  our  Faith,  but  on  various  topics  which  arise  from  time  to 
time,  and  vitally  affect  the  interests  of  religion  and  the 
Church. 

A  Diocesan  Synod  (as  I  have  already  said)  has  its  own 
peculiar  duties  to  perform ;  and  a  Diocesan  Conference  has 
its  characteristic  functions  also.  The  one  is  distinct  from 
the  other,  but  each  may  assist  the  other.  Every  well-con- 
structed balance  has  two  distinct  attributes,  stability  and 
sensibility.  In  our  Diocesan  constitution,  the  Synod  may 
be  compared  to  the  one, — the  Conference  to  the  other.  The 
subjects  proposed  for  consideration  in  them  are  different. 
The  matters  for  the  Synod  are  those  which  relate  to  the 
doctrine,  the  discipline,  and  the  sacred  offices  and  worship 
of  the  Church.  The  questions  for  the  Conference  are  of  a 
more  mixed  character ; — such  as  concern  the  relation  of  the 
Church  to  the  State,  the  tendency  of  legislative  measures 
affecting  the  Church  :  the  endowments  of  the  Church ;  the 
maintenance  of  the  Christian  ministry ;  the  sustentation  of 
our  sacred  fabrics,  our  churchyards,  and  their  services ;  the 
building,  and  maintenance,  and  efficiency  of  our  Schools ; 
the  support  of  Home  and  Foreign  Missions.  A  Diocesan 
Conference,  by  its  composite  character  and  its  stirring 
debates,  may  ventilate  many  subjects  of  interest  like  these, 
and  by  open  and  animated  discussion  may  prepare  matters 
for  Diocesan  action. 

In  order  to  serve  such  purposes  as  these,  the  Diocesan 
Conference  must  be  a  representative  body  composed  of 
Clergy  and  Laity. 


Diocesan  Synods  and  Conferences.  165 


Thus,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  a  Diocese  will  possess  two 
distinct  Institutions,  differing  indeed  in  constitution,  and 
also  in  their  modes  of  proceeding,  but  mutually  helping  one 
another ;  the  one  derived  from  the  earliest  ages  of  Christen- 
dom, and  consecrated  by  the  venerable  prescription  of 
eighteen  centuries,  and  by  the  time-honoured  traditions  and 
historical  associations  of  the  Universal  Church  and  of  the 
Church  of  England, — the  Diocesan  Synod  ; — the  other, 
springing  up  from  the  free  life  of  popular  Institutions  and 
Representative  Government, — the  Diocesan  Conference. 
By  means  of  both  we  may  hope  to  invigorate  the  old  with 
what  is  new,  and  to  consolidate  the  new  by  what  is  old ; 
and  thus,  by  not  cutting  off  the  entail  of  the  past,  but  by 
gladly  welcoming  the  present,  and  hopefully  looking  forward 
to  the  future,  we  may  combine  all  ages  together,  and  join 
them  in  a  cordial  embrace  of  Christian  Truth  and  Christian 
Love. 

Such  were  the  principles  on  which  our  Diocesan  Synod 
was  constituted,  and  by  which  its  proceedings  were  regulated. 
Many  of  us,  I  believe,  look  back  to  the  day  on  which  it  was 
held,  with  feelings  of  devout  thankfulness  to  Almighty  God 
for  His  presence  with  us,  and  for  the  success  which  He  was 
pleased  to  vouchsafe  to  our  endeavours  to  promote  His  glory 
and  the  good  of  His  Church. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  Diocesan  Synod  was  the  forma- 
tion of  a  Diocesan  Conference,  consisting  of  an  equal  number 
(250)  of  clergy  and  laity.  Its  first  meeting  was  held  at 
Lincoln  on  the  25th  of  October,  1872,  and  proved  very  suc- 
cessful. 


ON  THE  SALE  OF  CHUECH  PATRONAGE 
AND  SIMONY. 


No  one,  who  considers  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  is 
acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  can  fail  to 
foresee  that  a  severe  trial  is  at  hand, — perhaps  a  violent 
struggle, — with  regard  to  Church  Patronage. 

Purchase  has  been  recently  abolished  in  the  Army,  at  a 
great  national  sacrifice;  and  the  question  is  now  freely 
asked, — If  promotion  in  the  Army  is  to  depend  solely  on 
merit,  ought  advancement  in  the  Church  to  be  saleable  for 
money  ?  Is  the  salvation  of  men's  souls  of  less  importance 
than  the  protection  of  their  bodies  ?  Are  faithful  and 
valiant  Soldiers  more  needed  for  warfare  against  foreign 
foes  than  against  spiritual  enemies  ?  Are  national  con- 
quests more  glorious  than  moral  victories  ?  and  is  it  more 
noble  to  enlarge  the  territory  of  England  than  to  advance 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  ? 

The  Ecclesiastical  history  of  another  part  of  Great  Britain 
in  the  present  century  is  fraught  with  instruction  to 
ourselves. 

Church  Patronage  in  Scotland  has  lately  been  dealt  with 
by  the  Imperial  Legislature ;  and  by  a  recent  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment (37  &  38  Vict.  cap.  82.  1874)  it  has  been  abolished. 
Purchase  of  Ecclesiastical  preferments  is  unknown  also  in 
the  Free  Church  of  Scotland.  Why, — it  may  be  said,— is  it 
allowed  and  encouraged  in  England  ?  Are  the  spiritual 
interests  of  the  Parishes  on  this  side  the  Tweed  less  entitled 
to  the  protection  of  Law  than  those  who  dwell  on  the  north 
of  the  border  ?  If  Church  Patronage  is  to  be  a  marketable 
commodity  in  the  former  case,  why  not  in  the  latter  ? 


Church  Patronage  in  Scotland.  167 


But  this  is  not  all,  Scotland  also  teaches  us  this  lesson. 
If  we  neglect  to  adopt  measures  for  a  salutary  reform  in 
Church  Patronage,  we  may  have  cause  ere  long  to  rue  a 
revolution  with  regard  to  it. 

Perhaps  the  wisest  thing  that  was  said  in  the  course  of  a 
protracted  discussion  of  that  grave  question,  was  dictated  by 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Aberdeen  in 
1840.1 

"  What  I  would  recommend  (his  Grace  said)  to  the  Kirk 
to  consider  is,  that  their  utility  as  an  Establishment  depends 
in  a  great  measure  upon  their  intimate  connexion  with  the 
State.  They  cannot  be  an  Establishment  without  such  a 
union,  every  care  being  taken  to  preserve  their  exclusive  spirit  ual 
power,  and  to  secure  it  to  them.  But  in  the  exercise  of  this 
exclusive  power,  particularly  of  those  branches  thereof  which 
have  relation  with  the  municipal  power  of  the  State,  it  is 
very  desirable,  and  not  inconsistent  with  former  practice,  that 
the  Kirk  should  state  clearly  the  rule  which  it  is  proposed  to 
adopt,  that  that  ride  should  be  made  the  subject  of  an  Act,  of 
Parliament,  and  should  regulate  all  such  questions  for  the 
future." 

If  this  judicious  advice  had  been  followed  with  regard  to 
Patronage,  the  unhappy  disruption,  which  has  now  taken 
place  in  Scotland,  might  have  been  averted.  The  Patrons 
might  have  been  maintained  in  their  equitable  rights ;  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  the  People  would  have  been  promoted, 
and  the  reasonable  liberty  of  the  Kirk  would  have  been 
preserved. 

But  these  wise  counsels  were  disregarded. 

In  the  year  1843,  in  consequence  of  a  dispute  concerning 
Patronage,  the  Kirk  was  rent  asunder.  The  Schism  has 
now  become  inveterate.  The  People  have  triumphed  over 
the  Patrons  :  but,  whether  the  victory  has  proved  a  boon  to 
themselves,  and  whether  liberty  has  not  often  degenerated 
into  licentiousness,  may  admit  of  a  doubt.  This,  however, 
is  certain, — that  Patronage,  having  been  abused,  is 
extinguished,  even  in  the  Establishment  itself. 

Here  is  a  warning  for  England.  Let  the  counsel  of  the 
1  Earl  of  Aberdeen's  Correspondence,  p.  26. 


Miscellanies. 


Duke  of  Wellington  not  be  forgotten.  Let  the  Church 
declare  her  laws  concerning  Patronage,  and  against  Simony, 
as  set  forth  in  Holy  Scripture,  and  in  the  judgment  and 
practice  of  the  best  ages  of  Christianity,  and  by  our  own 
divines  at  the  Reformation.  And  let  the  State  give  effect 
to  those  laws  of  the  Church.  In  this,  as  in  other  matters, 
the  surest  and  speediest  way  to  arrest  Revolution,  is  by 
seasonable  and  salutary  Reformation. 

Let  us  now  advert  to  another  consideration. 

Friendly  overtures  have  recently  been  made,  not  without 
some  success,  to  our  Nonconformist  brethren,  especially  to 
the  Wesleyans,  with  a  view  to  their  reunion  with  ourselves, 
a  consummation  earnestly  to  be  wished  for  the  'sake  of  our 
common  Christianity. 

They  who  have  taken  part  in  these  measures  of  reconcilia- 
tion have  found,  by  painful  experience,  that  a  barrier  is 
opposed  to  this  reunion  by  the  scandal  of  the  sale  and 
purchase  of  Church  preferments;  which  would  not  be 
tolerated  in  any  dissenting  community. 

Charges  are  brought  by  Nonconformists  against  Laymen 
and  Clergymen  in  the  Church  of  England,  which  cannot  be 
refuted  ; 

 "  Pudet  hsec  opprobria  nobis 

Et  dici  potuisse,  et  non  potuisse  refelli."  s 

The  "Ecclesiastical  Gazette"  is  supposed  by  many  to  be 
an  accredited  organ  of  the  Church  of  England.  In  the  pages 
of  that  semi-official  Periodical  is  an  unblushing  display,  month 
after  month,  of  an  unholy  traffic  in  spiritual  things.  There, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  the  sellers  of  sheep  and  oxen  exhibit 
their  victims  ;  the  money-changers  set  up  their  tables,  and 
they  who  sell  doves  attract  customers  in  the  Temple  of  God. 
The  Divine  Head  of  the  Church,  Who,  on  two  occasions — 
one  at  the  beginning  of  His  Ministry,  the  other  at  the  close 
of  it 3 — drove  the  traffickers  in  sacred  things  with  holy  indig- 
nation from  His  presence,  and  said,  "Make  not  My  Father's 

s  Ovid,  Met.  i.  578. 

3  Matt.  xxi.  12,  13.  John  ii.  14—  1G.  This  act  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
has  been  regarded  by  the  best  Expositors  of  Holy  Scripture  as  expressive 
of  His  wrath  against  Simoniacal  traffic  in  His  Church.  See,  for  example, 
St.  Augustine's  Comment  on  John  ii.  14 — 16.    Traetat.  x.  in  Joannein. 


Advertisements  of  Livings  for  Sale.  169 


house  au  house  of  merchandize,"  and  "  My  house  shall  be 
called  the  house  of  prayer,  but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  of 
thieves,"  beholds  these  things.  He  marks  the  Advertise- 
ments, in  which  Clerical  Purchasers  of  Preferment, — Pastors 
of  the  Church  of  Christ, — are  tempted  by  the  inducements 
— not  of  saving  souls  and  promoting  the  glory  of  God,  in 
imitation  of  the  Good  Shepherd  Who  laid  down  His  life  for 
the  sheep — but  by  such  allurements  as  gardens  and  green- 
houses, coach-houses  and  stables,  a  comfortable  parsonage, 
and  well-kept  grounds,  with  a  trout-stream  and  grammar 
school  for  the  sons,  and  with  the  sea  not  far  off  for  the  wife 
and  daughters,  and  good  society,  and  a  railway  station 
within  a  mile,  and  an  income  of  800L  a  year;  and  it  is  added 
that  the  incumbent  is  75  years  of  age,  and  that  the  popula- 
tion is  small,  with  light  duty. 

We  are  informed  that  this  traffic  is  increasing.4 

4  The  evidence  of  this  increase  in  traffic  is  given  in  the  following 
Advertisements  transcribed  from  the  "  Ecclesiastical  Gazette  "  of  Decem- 
ber, 1873.  Similar  notices  may  be  seen  in  the  Numbers  for  January  and 
February,  1874.    The  Capitals  are  in  the  original. 

"  IMPORTANT  NOTICE— REMOVAL.— Mr.  begs  to 

inform  his  Clients  that,  in  consequence  of  the  continued  increase  of 
Business  in  the  various  departments  of  his  Ecclesiastical  Offices,  he  will 
REMOVE  opposite  to  Larger  Offices,  &c,  from  January  1st,  1874" 
"  THE  CHURCH  PREFERMENT  REGISTER  for  November— first 
work  of  its  kind  ever  issued — contains  full  and  confidential  particulars  of 
about  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  SEVENTY  ADVOWSONS,  PRESENTA  - 
TIOXS,  &c,  in  almost  every  county  and  Diocese.  For  SALE  by  private 
treaty.  Sent  to  bond  fide  Principals,  or  their  authorized  Solicitors,  on 
receipt  of  three  stamps.  Address,  &c.  N.13. — Personal  attendance  every 
day  (except  Saturday)  from  Ten  till  Four  o'clock." 

»Me.  OFFICES  FOR  THE  SALE,  PURCHASE,  AND 

EXCHANGE  OF  CHURCH  PREFERMENT,  &c. 

TO  PATRONS.— Mr.  —         having  on  his  books  the  names  ot 

over  TWO  HUNDRED  bond  fide  Purchasers,  will  be  glad  to  receive,  in 
confidence,  the  particulars  of  ADVOWSONS,  NEXT  PRESENTATIONS, 
EPISCOPAL  CHAPELS,  &c,  intended  for  disposal." 

The  following  is  from  the  Number  for  February,  1874 : — 
"  The  Monthly  Register  of  Church  Preferment,  for  February,  contains 
particulars  of  a  very  large  number  of  ADVOWSONS,  NEXT  PRESEN- 
TATIONS, DISTRICT  CHURCHES,  EPISCOPAL  CHAPELS,  &c,  for 
Sale,  and  should  be  seen  by  all  intending  Purchasers.  Forwarded  on 
confidential  application  of  Principals,  or  their  Solicitors,  in  return  for 
two  stamps.    Apply,  <&c."    So  bold  is  this  nefarious  traffic  become,  that 


Miscellanies. 


Some  persons  may  say,  Why  bring  these  things  to  light  ? 

Why  not  throw  a  veil  over  them?    Why  encourage  obloquy 

and  swell  clamour  against  the  Church  ?    I  answer,  They 

bring  themselves  to  light,  they  show  themselves  openly  in 

noonday.     They  parade  themselves  before  the  eye.  To 

attempt  to  disguise  them  is  to  encourage  them.  The 

wounds  of  the  Church  will  fester  unless  they  are  probed. 

The  only  remedy  is  in  vigorous  and  immediate  action  :  — 

Alitur  vitium  vivitque  tegendo, 
Dum  medicas  adhibere  manus  ad  vuluera  Pastor 
Abnegat  5 

Cuncta  priiis  tentanda  ;  sed  iminedicabile  vuluus 
Euse  reddendum.6 

Besides,  even  if  they  could  be  concealed  from  human  eyes, 
what  would  it  profit  us  ?  He  Who  is  described  by  the 
beloved  disciple  as  walking  in  the  midst  of  the  Golden 
Candlesticks  ' — which  are  the  Churches,8 — and  as  marking 
whether  they  burn  brightly,  has  His  eye  upon  them,  and 
He  will  remove  the  Candlestick  of  a  Church  which  allows 
its  light  to  be  dimmed  by  the  impurities  of  worldly  corrup- 
tion. He  will  stir  up  against  us  those  who  desire  our 
destruction.  They  who  now  demand  that  the  Church  of 
England  should  be  disestablished  and  disendowed,  have  their 
best  allies  in  those  of  the  Clergy  and  Laity,  who  abet  and 
connive  at  the  sale  of  spiritual  things.  The  most  effective 
appeals  in  the  speeches  of  liberationist  orators  haranguing 
on  popular  platforms,  and  inveighing  against  the  Church 
of  England,  are  supplied  by  those  Churchmen  and  Clergy- 
men who  sell  or  purchase  preferments  for  themselves  or  for 
their  friends  and  relatives. 

Kor  is  this  all.  The  infidel  and  the  scoffer  point  with 
scorn  to  those  Clergy  and  Laity  who  profess  a  reverential 
zeal  for  holy  things,  and  yet  treat  them  as  articles  for  sale. 

Religious  divisions  among  Christians,  and  the  hostile 
aggressions  of  Secularists,  and  the  open  assaults  of  Scepticism 
and  Unbelief  gain  strength  from  Simony  in  the  Church. 

in  the  Gazette  for  March,  1874,  and  in  Dec.  1877,  many  Advowsons  are 
advertised  for  sale  "  with  immediate  possession." 

'  Virg.  Georgic.  iii.  454.  6  Ovid,  Met  i.  190. 

'  Eev.  i.  13.  '  Kev.  i.  20. 


The  Church  condemns  Simony. 


171 


We  Lave  shut  up  the  Slave-market  at  Zanzibar,  but  we 
have  slave-markets  of  souls  in  London.  Congregations  of 
immortal  beings  are  publicly  put  up  for  auction,  and  are  sold 
to  the  highest  bidder ;  and  the  clergyman  who  has  bought 
them,  either  directly  by  his  own  money,  or  by  some  clandes- 
tine and  oblique  subterfuge  and  evasion  (which  is  known  to 
God,  the  Searcher  of  hearts  and  the  Judge  of  all),  comes 
and  presents  himself  to  a  Bishop  for  Institution  to  the  cure 
of  souls,  and  makes  a  solemn  declaration,  that  he  has  "  not 
made,  by  himself,  or  by  any  other  person  on  his  behalf,  any 
payment,  contract,  or  promise  of  any  kind  whatsoever,  which 
to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  or  belief  is  Simoniacal,  touching 

or  concerning  the  obtaining  the  preferment  of  , 

and  that  he  will  not  at  any  time  perform  or  satisfy  in  whole 
or  in  part  any  such  kind  of  payment,  contract,  or  promise 
made  by  any  other  without  his  knowledge  or  consent." 

 "  Sine  me  hsec  hand  mollia  fando 

Sublatis  aperire  dolis."9 

These  things  are  done  among  us,  and  are  said  to  be  on  the 
increase,  and  are  affording  a  triumph  to  our  enemies,  and 
are  provoking  God's  anger  against  us. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  not  fair  to  say  that  the  fault  is  with 
the  Church  herself.  Simony  is  no  part  of  her  system.  The 
Canons  of  the  Church  strongly  and  solemnly  condemn  it. 
She  earnestly  protests  against  it,  and  endeavours  to  remove 
it.  If  the  Church  had  her  will,  Simony  would  not  exist. 
But  the  misfortune  is  that  temporal  laws  stifle  her  voice  and 
restrain  her  action.  And  some  Laymen  and  Clergymen  are 
found  to  use  those  temporal  Laws  as  instruments  of  resisting 
her  authority,  and  sullying  the  honour  and  injuring  the 
welfare  of  the  Church,  of  which  they  are  members  and 
ministers.  But  the  fault  is  not  with  her,  but  with  them. 
This  is  the  condition  of  the  Church  in  this  world.  Even 
among  the  Apostles  was  a  Judas.  "  Offences  must  come, 
but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence  comcth  "  (Matt, 
xviii.  7). 

Let  it  also  be  remembered,  that  many  of  the  Clergy  and 
Laity  are  entangled  in  the  sin  of  Simony,  without  being 

J  Virg.  JEn.  sii.  2i. 


172 


Miscellanies. 


aware  of  it.  They  do  not  resort  to  the  inspired  Word  of 
God,  but  to  law  books.  They  do  not  go  to  the  House  of 
God,  but  to  chambers  in  Inns  of  Court.  They  do  not  inquire 
what  Holy  Scripture  says  concerning  Simony,  or  what  the 
Church  of  God  declares  with  respect  to  it ;  but  they  apply 
to  some  professional  adviser,  or  to  some  clerical  agent  for 
the  sale  of  preferments,  and  they  are  assured  by  them  that 
the  thing  which  they  desire  to  do  is  perfectly  legal,  and  safe, 
especially  if  cautious  means  and  circuitous  processes  are 
resorted  to,  and  that  no  detection  will  ensue.  And  so  their 
consciences  are  laid  asleep,  and  they  readily  and  calmly 
take  the  above  declaration  (which,  unhappily,  has  been 
recently  substituted  for  the  solemn  oath  in  the  40th  Canon), 
that  they  have  done  nothing  "  which  to  the  best  of  their  own 
knowledge  or  belief  is  simoniacal it  having  first  been 
arranged,  that  the  best  of  their  own  knowledge  should  be 
ignorance ;  and  that  their  own  belief  should  be  a  denial  oi 
the  doctrine  of  Scripture  and  the  Church  concerning  the  sin 
of  Simony,  into  which  they  have  been  betrayed. 

And  if  it  should  happen^  that  after  they  have  committed 
this  sin,  their  conscience  is  awakened  to  a  sense  of  guilt,  if 
by  some  visitation  of  God — some  blight  in  their  domestic 
happiness — some  solemn  and  sudden  revelation  of  His  wrath 
— they  are  bowed  down  to  the  dust  in  sorrow, — then  what 
writhing  of  soul  and  agony  of  heart  are  theirs  !  and  then 
how  bitterly  do  they  rue  the  act  to  which  their  tempters 
have  beguiled  them,  and  how  gladly  would  they  exchange 
the  luxuries  of  the  comfortable  parsonage  for  the  privations 
of  an  ill-endowed  cure,  and  how  thankfully  would  they 
imitate  the  example  of  that  conscience-stricken  simoniacal 
Prelate,  Herbert  of  Thetf ord  (afterwards  of  Norwich) ,  who 
laid  aside  his  episcopal  ring  and  crozier,  and  received  them 
back  again  after  a  penitential  discipline  of  self-reproach  and 
self-abasement.10 

Our  temporal  laws  concerning  Patronage  and  Simony 
urgently  need  to  be  reformed ;  but  even  if  this  were  done, 
yet  evasions  of  them  would  still  be  possible. 

10  William  of  Malmesbury  de  Gestis  Pontif.  Anglorum,  lib.  ii.,  and  see 
Dean  Goulburn's  life  of  Herbert,  pp.  88—0-1.  Oxf.,  1878. 


What  is  Simony  ?  17  3 

It  may  now  be  asked,  What  do  we  mean  by  Simony  ?  1 
Simony  is  so  called  from  Simon,  who  offered  money  to 
the  Apostles  at  Samaria,  in  order  to  obtain  from  them  the 
power  of  giving  the  Holy  Ghost  by  the  laying  on  of  hands/ 
and  to  whom  St.  Peter  replied,  "  Thy  money  perish  with 
thee,  because  thou  hast  thought  that  the  gift  of  God  may  be 
purchased  with  money ;  for  thy  heart  is  not  l'ight  in  the 
sight  of  God.  Repent  therefore,  and  pray  God,  if  perhaps  the 
thought  of  thine  heart  may  be  forgiven  thee  ;  for  I  perceive 
that  thou  art  in  the  gall  of  bitterness,  and  in  the  bond  of 
iniquity."  And  it  is  clear  that  St.  Peter  proceeded  to 
denounce  certain  judgments  upon  him  from  God  for  his  sin, 
for  Simon  answered,  "  Pray  ye  to  the  Lord  for  me,  that 
none  of  these  things  which  ye  have  spoken  come  upon  me/' 
At  the  present  time  it  is  alleged  by  some,  that  inas- 
much as  what  Simon  Magus  attempted  to  do,  was  to  pur- 
chase a  spiritual  gift,  therefore  it  is  not  Simony  to  buy 
an  ecclesiastical  benefice,  to  which  temporal  revenues  are 
annexed. 

But  to  this  allegation  it  may  be  replied, — 

First,  it  is  true  that  what  Simon  attempted  to  buy  was  a 
spiritual  gift,  but  he  valued  this  gift  not  for  any  spiritual 
grace  that  it  bestowed,  (this  is  clear  from  his  character  as 
described  in  Holy  Scripture  and  Church  3  History,)  but  for 
the  temporal  advantage  that  would  accrue  from  it  to  himself 

1  In  a  brief  statement  like  the  present  it  is  not  possible  to  treat  tbis 
grave  question  adequately.  Let  me  therefore  invite  the  reader's  attention 
to  the  following  works : — Van  Espen  de  Simonia  circa  Beneficia,  Jus 
Eccles.  Univ.  pars  ii.  tit.  xxx.,  and  his  separate  treatise,  De  Simonia, 
ibid.  torn.  ii.  p.  185,  Colon.  1748.  Bishop  Gibson's  Codex,  p.  799.  Bishop 
Stillingfleet,  in  his  treatise  on  Bonds  of  Besignation,  Lond.  1702. 
Thomassinus  de  Beneficiis,  torn.  vii.  p.  443,  and  torn.  x.  p.  225.  The 
treatise  of  Suarez  de  Simonia,  in  Migne's  Theol.  Cursus  Completus,  vol. 
xvi.  p.  322.  Dr.  Phillimore's  Judgment  in  the  Dean  of  York's  case  in 
Burn's  Eccl.  Law,  ed.  Lond.  1842,  iii.  607.  The  British  Critic,  Art.  lx. 
Oct.  1841.  Eev.  W.  D.  Willis  on  Simony,  1865.  Dr.  A.  Stephens'  Eccl. 
Law.    Sir  R.  Phillimore's  Eccl.  Law,  p.  1110—1147,  Lond.  1873. 

2  Acts  viii.  18, 23. 

3  Which  represents  him  as  a  sorcerer  (whence  his  name  Simon  Magus) 
and  also  as  an  arch-heretic.  See  Tillemont,  Memoires,  torn.  ii.  p.  16, 
ed.  1732. 


174 


Miscellanies. 


— whether  in  secular  profit,  or  worldly  fame,  or  both.  This 
is  what  is  done  by  the  purchasers  of  Church  Preferment. 
They  purchase  spiritual  things  with  a  view  to  temporal  ends. 

Secondly,  they  allege  that  they  buy  the  temporal  benefice 
and  not  the  sacred  office.  But  this  is  not  true.  The  benefice 
is  annexed  to  the  office,  not  the  office  to  the  benefice.  The 
benefice  exists  on  account  of  the  office,  and  not  the  office  on 
account  of  the  benefice.  The  office  is  the  principal  thing, 
the  benefice  is  an  accessory  to  it.  The  administration  of 
spiritual  functions  was  not  instituted  for  the  sake  of  the 
temporal  emolument,  but  the  temporal  emolument  is  granted 
for  the  administration  of  the  spiritual  functions. 

Let  us  ask  this  question  :  Do  they  desire  to  proclaim 
themselves  hirelings,  and  to  incur  the  malediction  of  Him 
who  said,  "  The  hireling  fleeth,  because  he  is  an  hireling, 
and  careth  not  for  the  sheep  "  ?  4  The  hireling  cares  only 
for  his  hire ;  this  is  the  essence  of  his  character  ;  and  if  he 
tells  us  that  his  hire  is  what  he  buys,  then  he  has  condemned 
himself  as  a  hireling. 

But  further,  it  is  evident,  that  what  he  buys  is  the  cure  of 
souls;  for  he  cannot  touch  any  part  of  the  temporalities 
before  he  has  been  admitted  to  the  cure  of  souls.  He  must 
first  come  to  the  Bishop  for  Institution.  Institution  is  a 
solemn  act,  by  which  the  Chief  Pastor  of  a  Diocese  admits  a 
Clergyman  to  a  cure  of  souls  in  it : '  Institution  is  the  act 
of  the  Bishop,  and  is  a  prerequisite  to  Induction.  Induction 
is  performed  by  another  person,  the  Archdeacon ;  and  by  it 
the  clergyman,  having  first  been  instituted  to  the  cure  of 
souls,  and  to  the  ministry  of  the  Word  of  God  and  of  the 
Sacraments  by  the  Bishop,  is  afterwards  put  into  corporal 
possession  of  the  temjjoralitics  of  the  benefice. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  what  is  bought  (I  do  not  say 

1  John  x.  13  :  see  St.  Augustine's  commentary  there  (Tract  xlvi.),  in 
which  the  words  of  our  Lord  are  applied  to  Simoniacal  clergymen ;  also 
his  Sermon  on  John  x.  1 — 16,  Serm.  137. 

5  The  words  of  Institution  are — "  We  do  hy  these  presents  commit 
unto  you  the  cure  and  government  of  the  souls  of  the  Parishioners,  and 
authorize  you  to  preach  the  Word  of  God,  and  to  administer  the  Holy 
Sacraments  in  the  Parish  Church.  In  the  Name  of  the  Father,  and  of 
the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Amen." 


What  is  Simony  ? 


i/5 


the  only  thing  that  is  bought)  is  the  admission  to  the  Cure 
of  Souls  and  to  the  Ministry  of  the  Sacraments  ;  for,  if  that 
were  not  first  procured,  there  would  be  no  claim  to  the 
revenues  of  the  benefice.  Therefore  the  purchase  of  a  bene- 
fice by  a  clergyman,  or  by  any  one  acting  on  his  behalf,  is 
the  purchase  of  spiritual  things,  which  is  Simony.  This  is 
the  judgment  of  the  Church  Universal,  and  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

As  to  the  Church  Universal, — to  omit  other  authorities,0 
— its  mind  was  clearly  pronounced  by  a  decree  of  the  fourth 
General  Council,  that  of  Chalcedon,  a.d.  451. 

The  decree  begins  with  condemning  Simoniacal  collations 
of  holy  Orders,  and  then  proceeds  to  speak  of  preferment 
to  benefices  in  the  Church,  and  says,  that  if  any  Bishop,  for 
the  sake  of  money,  shall  have  promoted  any  treasurer,  or 
advocate,  or  sacrist,  or  any  ecclesiastical  persons,  with  a 
view  to  sordid  lucre,  he  shall  be  in  danger  of  deposition ; 
and  no  one  who  shall  have  been  so  ordained  or  promoted 
shall  derive  any  benefit  from  the  ordination  or  promotion 
which  has  been  purchased,  but  be  removed  from  the  dignity 
or  cure  which  he  has  obtained  by  money.  And  if  any  one 
can  be  proved  to  have  negotiated  as  an  agent  in  such  base 
traffic,  if  he  is  a  clergyman,  let  him  be  degraded,  but  if  a 
layman,  let  him  be  anathematized.7 

By  the  law  of  the  Church,  Simony  is  defined  to  be  a 
deliberate  act  or  a  premeditated  will  and  desire  of  selling  or 
buying  such  things  as  "  are  spiritual,  or  of  any  thing  annexed 
unto  spirituals,"  such  as  an  ecclesiastical  benefice;  or  of 
giving  something  of  a  temporal  nature  for  the  purchase 
thereof ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  is  a  commutation  of  things 
spiritual,  or  annexed  unto  spirituals,  for  something  that  is 
temporal ;  or  as  Lancelot 8  briefly  expresses  it,  "  Simonia 
est  studiosa  voluntas,  sive  cupiditas,  emendi  vel  vendendi 
spiritualia,  vel  spiritualibus  annexa." 

6  These  have  been  collected  by  Launoy  in  his  learned  work  on  Simony. 
Launoii  Opera,  torn.  ii.  pt.  ii.  p.  451—563,  ed.  Colon.  1731.  See  also  the 
works  quoted  above,  p.  173,  note. 

'  This  is  the  second  Canon  of  the  General  Council  of  Chalcedon  ;  and 
may  be  seen  in  Labbe's  Concilia,  torn.  iv.  p.  756,  ed.  Paris,  1671. 

8  Lancelot,  Instit.  Juris  Canon,  lib.  iv.  t  3. 


i  76 


Miscellanies, 


The  Church  of  England  is  explicit  in  her  declarations  on 
this  subject. 

The  opinions  of  our  English  Reformers  may  be  seen  in 
the  Injunctions  published  by  King  Edward  VI.,  in  1547, 
and  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  1559, 9  where  it  is  said  that  "to 
avoid  the  detestable  sin  of  Simony,  and  because  the  buying 
and  selling  of  Benefices  is  execrable  before  God,  therefore 
all  such  persons  as  buy  any  Benefices  shall  be  deprived  of 
such  Benefices,  and  be  made  unable  at  any  time  after  to 
receive  any  other  spiritual  promotion."  And  among  the 
Canons  of  1603,  Canon  40th  was  specially  framed  "for  the 
avoidance  of  the  detestable  sin  of  Simony,  and  because  the 
buying  of  Ecclesiastical  functions  and  livings  is  execrable 
before  God." 

In  the  Canons  of  1571,  framed  under  Archbishop  Parker, 
and  subscribed  by  the  Bishops  of  both  Provinces,  is  the 
following  remarkable  decree  concerning  Church  Patronage 
and  Simony,1  "  The  Bishop  shall  earnestly  exhort  Patrons  of 
benefices  to  consider  the  needs  of  the  Church,  and  to  have 
ever  before  their  eyes  the  Last  Day,  and  the  Judgment  and 
Tribunal  of  God ;  and,  therefore,  not  to  present  any  one  to 
an  ecclesiastical  office,  except  such  persons  as  by  learning, 
discretion,  piety,  probity,  and  blamelessness  of  life  are  quali- 
fied to  discharge  so  weighty  a  function ;  and  that  they  do 
nothing  in  this  matter,  otherwise  than  with  integrity, 
honesty,  and  sincerity.  And  let  the  Bishop  warn  them,  that 
he  will  use  all  fair  and  lawful  means  to  discover  the  truth 
therein.  And  if  he  should  find,  either  at  the  time  of  pre- 
sentation, or  after  it,  that  any  corrupt  proceeding  or 
Simoniacal  traffic  has  been  resorted  to,  in  any  manner  what- 
soever, however  clandestinely,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
either  by  the  Patron  himself  or  by  others,  with  a  view  to 
the  procuring  of  any  money  or  price,  or  any  commodity,  or 
any  portion  of  the  revenues,  let  him  advertise  the  Patron 
that  he  is  resolved  to  make  a  public  proclamation  of  the 
fact,  not  only  in  his  Cathedral  Church,  but  also  in  other 
places,  to  the  disgrace  and  eternal  infamy  of  the  Patron ; 

3  See  Bishop  Gibson's  Codex,  p.  101. 
1  In  Cardwell's  Sjnodalia  i.  p.  120. 


Laws  on  Simony. 


177 


and  that  he  is  further  determined  to  remove  the  Presbyter, 
whom  he  lias  so  nefariously  presented,  not  only  from  the 
benefice  which  he  has  dishonestly  entered,  but  from  all 
ministrations  in  the  Diocese." 

Such  was  the  language  of  the  Church  of  England  at  the 
Reformation,  concerning  Church  Patronage  and  Simony. 

Our  greatest  lawyers  have  used  the  same.  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Coke  says  (I.  Inst.  17,  b)  that  "the  Common  Law 
doth  detest  Simony  and  all  corrupt  bargains  for  presentation 
to  any  benefice ;  and  its  design  is,  that  a  fit  person  for  the 
discharge  of  the  cure  should  be  presented  freely,  without 
expectation  of  anything." 

But  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  temporal  aspects  of  the  ques- 
tion, which  is  dealt  with  in  the  Statutes  of  31  Eliz.  cap.  6, 
and  12  Anne,  cap.  12,  which  not  only  forbid  a  Clergyman 
to  purchase  for  himself  a  next  presentation  with  his  own 
money,  but  to  take  and  accept  a  next  presentation  so  bought. 

If  the  purchase  of  a  next  presentation  by  a  Clergyman  is 
Simoniacal,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  purchase  of  an 
Advowson,  with  the  intent  to  use  in  his  own  behalf  the  next 
presentation,  is  not  also  Simoniacal ;  for  what  is  an  Advow- 
son but  a  series  of  successive  presentations  ?  And  if  he  may 
use  the  next  presentation  for  himself,  and  then  sell  the 
Advowson  to  another  Clergyman  who  may  do  the  same 
thing  in  his  turn,  we  have  what  the  prophet  calls  a  process 
of  "drawing  sin  as  with  a  cart-rope"  (Isaiah  v.  18). 

Our  principal  concern  here  is  with  the  declarations  of 
Holy  Scripture,  and  of  the  Church.  They  affirm  that 
Simony  is  a  sin  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  that  "  it  consists 
not  only  in  trafficking  for  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
(Acts  viii.  18 — 20),  but  in  purchases  made  by  Clergymen  of 
spiritual  preferments  (Bingham,  Ant.  xvi.  6)." 

Our  Church  (in  her  40th  Canon  of  1603,  above  quoted), 
defines  Simony  to  "  be  the  buying  and  selling  of  Spiritual 
and  Ecclesiastical  functions,  offices,  promotions,  dignities, 
and  livings,"  and  declares  it  to  be  a  "  detestable  sin,"  and 
"execrable  before  God."  Simony  is  punishable  by  Eccle- 
siastical Laws;  the  Canon  of  1571,  just  cited,  seems  plainly 
to  assume  this.    And  our  most  learned  Canonists  have 

VOL.  III.  N 


1 78 


Miscellanies. 


shown — namely,  Archbishop  Wake,  Bishop  Stillingfleet,  and 
Bishop  Gibson  (see  Codex  ii.  798,  801) — that  it  was  never 
the  intention  of  the  Civil  Legislature  "  to  repeal  Ecclesias- 
tical Laws  concerning  Simony,  or  to  determine  the  nature 
and  bounds  of  it."  The  Temporal  Courts  have  generally 
held  that  "  Simony  is  a  thing  of  spiritual  cognizance/'  and 
have  granted  consultations  accordingly  (Gibson,  798).  In 
the  case  of  Baker  v.  Rogers,  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas 
declared  that  it  appertains  to  the  Spiritual  Court  to  deter- 
mine what  is  Simony  (Ibid.  798),  and  Bishop  Stillingfleet 
says  (Ecclesiastical  Cases,  i.  59,  cp.  p.  316),  "by  the  Canon 
Law  it  was  deprivation  for  a  Clergyman  to  be  convicted  of 
buying  an  Ecclesiastical  Benefice  for  his  own  benefit." 

Let  me  now  offer  some  remarks  by  way  of  practical 
application. 

The  Law  of  Church  Patronage  cannot  remain  as  it  is. 
The  question  is — What  is  to  be  done  for  its  amendment  ? 

1.  Let  the  attempt  already  made  in  Parliament  by  the 
present  Home  Secretary,  Mr.  Cross,  with  every  prospect  of 
success,  be  renewed.  Let  the  sale  of  Next  Presentations 
to  Cures  of  Souls  be  prohibited  by  law,  with  penalties 
imposed  on  all  persons  who  are  concerned  in  them.  Let 
also  the  sale  of  Advowsons  for  private  interests,2  after  a 
certain  date  and  with  due  compensation,  be  forbidden.  This 
may  seem  a  stringent  measure;  but  it  has  already  been 
enacted  by  the  Legislature  for  Scotland.  Advowsons  are 
generally  bought  for  the  sake  of  the  next  Presentation.  In 
many  Advertisements  of  the  Sale  of  Advowsons,  the  words, 
"  with  immediate  possession,"  occur,  intimating  that  the  next 
Presentation  is  the  thing  specially  offered  and  supposed  to 
be  desired.  And  it  will  be  found  also,  that  when  the 
Advowson  has  been  purchased,  and  when  the  next  Presen- 
tation has  been  used  by  the  Purchaser,  then  the  Advowson 

2  I  will  not  enter  into  the  question,  whether  the  sale  of  certain  livings 
in  the  gift  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  was  justifiable.  The  Sale  was  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Church,  and  has  been  defended  on  the  same  principle 
as  the  casting  of  the  wheat  into  the  sea  to  save  the  ship  and  the  crew 
(Acts  xxvii.  38),  and  as  the  pulling  down  of  an  old  church  is  justified 
when  it  is  done  for  the  sake  of  building  a  better  one  on  the  same,  or  a 
more  commodious,  site. 


IV hat  is  to  be  dour  f 


179 


appears  again  in  the  market,  and  is  sold  to  another  Pur- 
chaser who  treats  it  in  the  same  manucr.  In  fact  Sales  of 
Advowsons  are  often  nothing  else  than  Sales  of  a  series  of 
next  Presentations.  I  am  speaking  especially  of  what  are 
called  "  Advowsons  in  gross"  and  not  of  "  Advowsons  appen- 
dant" to  Manors  or  Estates.  And  if  the  Sale  of  next  Pre- 
sentations were  forbidden,  but  the  Sale  of  Advowsons  or  of 
Life  Interests  in  Advowsons  were  to  continue  to  be  allowed, 
then  the  Sale  of  next  Presentations,  involved  in  the  Sale 
of  Advowsons,  would  become  more  rife  ;  and  the  prohibition 
of  the  Sale  of  next  Presentations,  properly  so  called,  would 
be  virtually  null  and  void. 

The  only  sound  principle,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  that  which 
is  grounded  on  Holy  Scripture,  and  on  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  the  Christian  Church  in  its  best  ages. 

The  Sale  of  Church  preferment  is  contrary  to  fundamental 
doctrines  of  Christianity.  There  is  no  common  measure 
between  money  and  immortal  souls  which  the  Son  of  God 
Himself  has  purchased  with  His  own  most  precious  Blood. 
The  Sale  of  a  cure  of  souls  violates  that  liberty  with  which 
Christ  Himself  has  made  them  free  (Gal.  v.  1).  It  is  a 
spiritual  slave-trade. 

These  principles  are  embodied  in  the  Decrees  of  the 
Christian  Church,  especially  in  the  Second  Canon  of  the 
Fourth  General  Council,  that  of  Chalcedon,  in  a.d.  451,  and  in 
the  universal  consent  of  Christendom,  which  declared  that 
Church  Patronage  is  not  a  marketable  commodity,  for  the 
private  interest  of  Patrons,  but  a  sacred  trust  for  the  glory 
of  God,  and  for  the  good  of  His  people. 

The  Christian  Church,  for  a  thousand  years  after  Christ 
never  imagined  that  Advowsons  (advocationes)  to  the  Cure 
of  Souls  could  be  bought  and  sold  for  money. 

It  appears  from  the  learned  researches  of  Van  Espen 
quoted  above,  that  Advowsons  were  transferred  together 
with  the  Manor  to  which  they  appertained,  but  were  not 
sold  separately. 

What  is  now  to  be  done  with  "  Advowsons  in  gross," — 
that  is,  not  attached  to  any  Estate — is  a  question  which 
deserves  careful  consideration.    Vested  Interests  are  to  be 

N  2 


i  So 


Miscellanies. 


respected,  and  some  process  might  be  devised  by  which 
these  Advowsons  (if  a  Sale  of  them  were  requisite),  might 
be  taken  out  of  their  present  anomalous  predicament,  and 
either  be  attached  to  Estates,  or  placed  in  the  hands  of  some 
public  Patron  or  Patrons,  who  would  dispense  their  patron- 
age with  a  view  to  the  general  good. 

Such  an  act  of  Spiritual  Emancipation  would  be  worthy 
of  a  great  Nation,  which  has  done  more  than  any  other  to 
abolish  the  Slave-Trade. 

As  to  the  Sale  of  Life  Interests  in  Advowsons,  What  would 
be  said  of  a  Bishop,  or  other  Ecclesiastical  Patron,  who 
bartered  for  private  advantage  his  Life  Interest  in  the 
Benefices  of  which  he  is  Patron  ?  But  why  should  a  Cure 
of  Souls  in  Lay  Patronage  be  worse  off  spiritually  than  a 
Parish  in  Episcopal  hands  ?  Why  should  the  Sale  of  it  in 
the  former  case  be  connived  at  as  venial,  and  be  denounced 
as  Simoniacal  in  the  other  ? 

There  are  about  7000  Benefices  in  Lay  Patronage  in 
England  and  Wales ;  and  if  they  were  bestowed  on  meri- 
torious Clergymen,  the  scandal  of  the  present  secular  traffic 
in  spiritual  things  would  be  removed,  and  a  remedy  would 
be  provided  for  another  glaring  abuse,  which  is  generally 
deplored,  namely,  that  many  faithful  and  zealous  Clergymen 
are  now  allowed  to  remain  Curates  for  twenty  or  thirty  years, 
and  perhaps  during  the  whole  of  their  lives. 

2.  Let  Bishops  be  protected  and  supported  in  refusing  to 
institute  Clergymen,  who,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  are 
guilty  of  Simoniacal  practices.  Let  Parishes  also  be  pro- 
tected in  declining  to  receive3  such  Clergymen  as  their 
Pastors. 

3  To  my  own  knowledge  a  living  lately  became  vacant.  It  could  not 
be  sold  during  the  vacancy.  What  was  done  ?  A  decrepit  clergyman 
was  found,  and  he  was  presented  to  the  living.  And  then  the  living  was 
advertised,  and  sold  with  "  prospect  of  immediate  possession,"  and  a  large 
price  was  realized  accordingly.  The  indignation  of  the  Parishioners  may 
be  imagined. 

The  following  case  is  too  common.  A  clergyman  is  patron  of  a  benefice 
which  he  holds;  and  wishes  to  sell  the  Advowson.  He  privately  pro- 
mises to  present  a  clergyman  who  buys  the  Advowson,  or  for  whom  it 
is  bought;  and  then  he  resigns  the  benefice,  and  presents  him  to  it. 


What  is  to  be  done  .' 


181 


3.  The  best  course  for  rich  capitalists,  who  have  sons  in 
holy  orders,  is  not  to  buy  "good  livings"  for  them,  but  to 
augment  the  endowment  of  poor  ones,  and  to  offer  their  sons 
to  a  Bishop  for  the  pastoral  cure  of  those  Parishes.  This 
would  be  a  noble  investment  of  their  capital ;  and  would 
yield  a  rich  profit  in  a  better  world. 

4.  Let  it  be  suggested  also  for  consideration,  whether 
Bonds  of  resignation  of  benefices  should  not  be  rendered 
illegal.  After  reading  the  learned  treatise  of  Bishop  Stiiling- 
fleet  on  this  subject,4  few  persons  can  entertain  a  doubt  that 
these  bonds  approach  very  near  to  Simony.  They  are  now 
lawful  under  certain  conditions  by  9  Geo.  4,  c.  94 ;  but  that 
which  is  lawful  is  not  here  expedient  (1  Cor.  vi.  12;  x.  23)  ; 
and  the  temptation  to  it  ought  to  be  removed. 

5.  The  present  Declaration  taken  at  Institution,  concern- 
ing Simony,  ought  to  be  amended,  either  by  being  restored 
to  its  original  form  as  it  stood  in  the  40  th  Canon,  or  by 
being  directed  against  all  purchase,  either  direct  or  indirect, 
of  the  benefice. 

•  6.  Donatives,  for  well  known  reasons,  ought  to  be  put  on 
the  same  footing  as  other  benefices. 

But  Laws  without  morals  will  have  little  effect.  Let  all 
who  are  concerned  in  this  matter  examine  their  own  con- 
sciences, as  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  let  them  inform  and 
regulate  their  consciences  by  His  Will  and  Word,  and  by 
the  judgment  of  His  Church,  and  act  accordingly. 

1.  Church  Patronage  is  a  sacred  Trust  to  be  administered 
for  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  good  of  His  People ;  and  He 
will  demand  a  strict  account  of  Patrons  how  it  has  been 
exercised.  Can  a  Patron  look  with  any  reasonable  hope  to 
that  Day  of  reckoning,  if  he  has  used  it  for  his  own  temporal 
interest  ?  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  a  more  noble 
spectacle,  in  this  money-getting  and  money- loving  age,  than 

1  Bishop  Stillingfieet's  Discourses  concerning  Bonds  of  Resignation  of 
Benefices  in  point  of  Law  and  Conscience  ;  in  his  Ecclesiastical  Cases, 
vol.  i.  p.  175,  Lond.  1702.  The  thirty-fifth  Canon  of  the  Church  of 
Ireland  (a.d.  1634),  condemns  Bonds  of  Resignation.  The  judgments  of 
Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow  and  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon  against  them,  may 
be  seen  in  Burn,  iii.  632,  036;  Phillimore,  pp.  1122,  1124. 


182 


Miscellanies. 


that  of  a  Patron  resisting  the  temptations  of  worldly  gain, 
and  administering  his  patronage  in  a  pure,  unselfish,  disin- 
terested spirit  of  Christian  patriotism  and  loyalty  to  God  and 
man.  The  Patrons  of  Ecclesiastical  Benefices  hold  a  high 
place  of  honour,  and  are  entitled  to  respect.  They  repre- 
sent those  who  laid  on  God's  altar  the  offering  of  tithes  and 
other  revenues  to  be  dedicated  for  ever  to  His  Glory,  and  to 
the  salvation  of  souls.    Their  very  name  indicates  a  trust. 

It  is  supposed  by  some  that  the  word  Advowson  implies 
property  ;  this  is  an  error ;  it  represents  duty.  The  English 
word  Advowson  is  from  the  Latin  Advocation  and  it  does 
not  at  all  mean,  as  some  think,  that  he  who  has  it,  has  a 
right  to  call  a  clerk  to  the  benefice  (advocare  ad  beneficium)  ; 
but  it  means  that  he  has  the  responsible  duty  of  Advocation, 
i.e.  of  being  an  advocate  or  pleader  for  the  Parish.  His  duty, 
implied  by  the  name,  is  to  defend  it  against  all  harm. 

And  this  is  further  illustrated  by  his  name  Patron.  That 
name  is  from  the  Roman  Law,  in  which  a  patronus  was  an 
Advocate  or  pleader  in  a  lawsuit  for  a  client. 

And  those  persons  who  have  advowsons,  or  advocationes, 
are  Patrons — that  is,  advocates,  defenders  of  the  rights  of 
God  and  His  people5  in  the  parishes  where  they  are  patrons. 
Those  rights  are  their  clientela;  a  more  honourable  retinue 
than  ever  escorted  a  Roman  Patron  in  his  progress  through 
the  crowded  streets  of  the  city,  or  flocked  early  in  the 
morning  to  offer  their  salutations  in  his  marble  halls.0  The 
privileges  and  responsibilities  of  Patrons,  have  been  ex- 
pressed metrically  in  the  following  legal  aphorisms : — 

Patronum  faciunt  dos,  cedificatio,  fundus  ; 
and  what  follows  ? 

Patrono  debetur  honos,  onus,  utilitasque. 
The  onus  and  utilitas  are  consequent  on  the  honos,  and 
therefore  it  is  added — 

PrcBsentet,  prcesit,  defindat ;  alatur  egenus. 
It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  dignified  office  than  that  of 
the  Christian  Patron.    He  is  the  honoured  son  of  a  loving: 

5  Patrons  are  expressly  called  advocati  and  dcfcnsores  in  the  Canon 
Law,  see  Van  Espen,  Part  ii.  tit.  xxv.  cap.  i. 

6  Virg.  Georg.  ii.  4G2. 


What  is  the  meaning  of  Advowson,  and  Patron  f  183 

mother,  the  Church  of  God.  In  ancient  times  the  nobles 
and  princes  of  Europe  gloried  in  the  privilege  of  protecting 
and  adorning  Christian  Churches.  The  Patron  was  met  at 
the  door  of  the  Church  by  the  Clergy  and  Congregation  as 
a  public  benefactor.  And  he  regarded  the  gratitude  of  the 
faithful,  who  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  a  watchful  and  zealous 
Pastor  by  his  means,  as  his  best  reward  on  earth ;  he  had 
the  recompense  of  their  prayers,  and  of  their  blessings  upon 
him  and  upon  his  family;  in  those  prayers  and  blessings  he 
had  a  pledge  and  foretaste  of  the  infinite  and  eternal  reward 
which  he  would  receive  at  the  Great  Day  from  the  Good 
Shepherd,  Who  shed  His  life-blood  on  the  cross  for  him  and 
for  them.  What  unspeakable  pleasure  did  he  feel  on  visiting 
the  Church,  and  in  taking  part  in  its  holy  ministrations,  and 
in  the  consciousness  that  they  were  due,  in  great  measure, 
to  himself,  as  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  God  !  Here  was 
his  joy  in  life,  here  was  his  comfort  in  the  hour  of  death. 

God  be  thanked  that  this  beautiful  picture  is  still  realized 
in  many  Churches  and  Parishes  in  this  and  other  Dioceses. 

But  let  us  look  on  the  other  side. 

The  Roman  Poet,  in  his  description  of  the  nether  world, 
and  on  the  penalties  reserved  for  those  who  have  lived  guilty 
lives  on  earth,  represents  the  Furies  as  inflicting  the  most 
painful  torments  on  those  who  hated  their  brethren,  or 
maltreated  their  parents,  or  devised  frauds  on  their  clients ; 

"  Hie  quibus  invisi  fratres,  dum  vita  manebat, 
Pulsatusve  parens,  etfruus  innexa  clienti." ' 

Are  not  these  sins  committed  by  him  who  injures  his  Chris- 
tian brethren,  or  does  wrong  to  his  mother  the  Church,  or 
practises  deceit  on  the  Parishioners,  who  are  his  clients,  and 
of  whom  he  is  the  Patron  ?  What  would  have  been  said  of 
the  Roman  Patron,  who  sold  his  clients  for  money?  What 
must  be  said  of  the  Patron  of  a  Church,  who  barters  the  souls 
of  a  parish  for  worldly  pelf  ?  Can  there  be  any  true  profit 
to  him  from  such  a  bargain  ?  It  is  to  be  feared  that, 
unless  he  repents,  the  purchase-money  may  by  a  blight  on  his 
property,  and  eat  as  a  canker  into  his  estate,  his  family,  and 
himself,  in  body  and  soul,  in  this  world  and  another. 

^  Virg.  Mn.  vi.  037. 


Miscellanies. 


On  such  grounds  as  these  the  sale  of  Advowsons  has  been 
strictly  forbidden  by  Laws  of  the  Church.  (See  Van  Espen, 
Pars  ii.  tit.  xv.  c.  iv.) 

2.  But  if  we  thus  speak  of  Patrons  acting  in  this  raannei-, 
what  must  be  said  of  their  legal  advisers  ? 

Dr.  Thomas  Fuller8  describes  the  character  of  a  good 
Lawyer,  and  compares  him  to  the  loyal  soldier,  who  will 
never  fight  against  his  Prince  ;  and  in  like  manner,  he  says, 
the  genuine  Christian  Lawyer  will  never  fight  against  Him 
Who  is  the  Truth,  and  the  King  of  Kings.  The  good 
lawyer  will  never  fight  against  Christ. 

It  is  therefore  submitted  very  respectfully  for  the  con- 
sideration of  solicitors  and  pleaders,  especially  of  ecclesiastical 
lawyers,  canonists,  and  civilians,  whether  their  profession 
would  not  be  much  more  honourable  in  the  opinion  of  all 
good  men,  and  much  more  profitable  to  themselves  with 
reference  to  another  world,  if,  instead '  of  applying  their 
learning  and  talents  to  devise  means  whereby  the  Clergy 
may  evade  the  laws  of  the  land  concerning  Simony,  and 
contravene  the  authority  of  Holy  Scripture  and  the  Church 
of  God,  they  would  endeavour  to  deter  them  from  these  sins, 
which,  though  not  perhaps  discoverable  by  human  eyes,  or 
punishable  by  human  tribunals,  will  assuredly  expose  them  and 
their  abettors  and  accomplices  to  severe  pains  and  penalties 
from  Him,  before  Whom  all  clients  and  lawyers  must  appear, 
and  from  Whom  nothing  is  hid,  and  by  Whom  all  things 
will  be  judged  ? 

Bishop  Stillingfleet  thus  writes  : 9  —  It  is  much  to  be 
"  wished  that  Lawyers  would  not  encourage  their  clients  in 
indirect  methods  of  obtaining  presentations.  Here  lies  a 
great  part  of  our  present  mischief.  Clergymen  who  want 
benefices  say,  We  are  ignorant  of  the  Law,  but  we  go  to 
those  whose  business  it  is  to  understand  it,  and  they  tell 
us  that  they  have  cases  and  precedents  in  their  books, 
and  therefore  why  are  we  blamed  if  we  submit  to  them  V 

Thank  God  there  are  many  noble  examples  of  Christian 
Lawyers  among  us — may  their  number  be  greatly  increased 

8  Fuller's  Holy  State,  p.  51. 

9  Bp.  Stillingfleet,  Eccl.  Cases,  i.  358. 


Simoniaca  I  Lawyers,  Agents,  and  A  dvertisements.  1 8  5 


— who  have  dissuaded  and  deterred  the  Clergy  from  dis- 
honouring themselves  and  their  profession  by  resorting  to 
unworthy  artifices  for  the  sake  of  worldly  gain.  Their 
names  will  shine  hereafter  among  those  of  our  Mores  and 
our  Hales  of  former  times,  and  of  many  in  our  own  days, 
who  have  shed  a  holy  lustre  on  the  Bench  and  on  the  Bar. 

3.  Let  me  specify  here  another  practical  remedy. 

To  the  honour  of  many  English  Newspapers  be  it  recorded 
that  their  proprietors  refuse  to  admit  Simoniacal  Advertise- 
ments into  their  columns.  All  honour  to  them  for  this 
sacrifice  of  worldly  lucre  for  a  sacred  principle.  They  will 
have  their  recompense  hereafter,  and  probably  here  ;  they 
will  have  it  in  the  approval  of  a  good  conscience,  and  in  the 
praise  and  encouragement  of  good  men. 

It  is  to  be  earnestly  hoped,  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant 
when  the  proprietors  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Gazette,  which,  as 
I  have  said,  is  regarded  by  some  as  an  accredited  organ  of 
the  Church  of  England,  wdl  announce  publicly  their  intention 
of  excluding  such  Advertisements1  from  their  pages,  and  will 
thus  remove  a  scandal  which  is  caused  to  many  good  men,  and 
will  take  away  the  occasion  of  scoffing  and  exultation  which  is 
given  thereby  to  the  enemies  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  will  cease  to  promote  and  encourage  a  secular  traffic  in 
spiritual  things,  which  is  detrimental  to  her  welfare,  for- 
bidden by  her  canons,  and  displeasing  to  her  Divine  Head. 

Such  a  sacrifice  on  their  part  would  cause  great  gratifica- 
tion to  her  members,  and  would  not  fail  of  its  reward. 

4.  But  the  principal  remedy  of  the  evil  lies  with  the 
Bishops  and  Clergy  of  the  Church. 

Of  all  the  weights  which  press  heavily  on  the  conscience 
of  a  Bishop,  one  of  the  heaviest  is  that  which  is  laid  upon 
him  by  the  present  laws  of  the  land  with  regard  to  Church 
Patronage  and  Simony.  Sometimes  cases  arise  where  every- 
thing appeal's  to  be  against  him.  Some  Patrons  are  against 
him ;  because  they  present  unworthy  Clergymen  to  Benefices, 
who  claim  admission  to  the  cure  of  souls  in  Livings,  which 

1  See  above,  pp.  168,  169.  1  am  very  thankful  to  be  able  to  add  that 
this  suggestion  has  now  been  anticipated  by  the  present  Editor  and 
Proprietors  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Gazette,  Jan.,  1879. 


1 86 


Miscellanies. 


they  or  their  friends  have  bought  by  means  which  are 
morally  Simoniacal,  but  which  cannot  perhaps  be  legally 
proved  to  be  so.  Some  Lawyers  and  clerical  agents  are 
against  him,  because  they  give  opinions,  or  devise  expe- 
dients, and  set  traps,  by  which  the  Clergy  are  ensnared  into 
what  is  Simoniacal  in  the  eye  of  God  and  of  the  Church. 
Some  Clergymen  are  against  him,  because  they  come  to  him 
with  a  deed  of  presentation  in  their  hands,  which  has  been 
purchased  for  them  by  a  friend.  Or  they  may  even  have 
bought  it  with  their  own  money.  They  buy  Advowsons,  or 
life-interests,  of  Patrons,  and  claim  the  right  of  presenting 
themselves  to  the  cure  of  souls  which  they  have  bought  with 
their  own  money  ;  and  he  is  to  bear  the  burden  of  resisting 
such  a  claim  as  that.2 

It  seems  to  be  forgotten  by  some,  that  a  Bishop  is  the 
responsible  guardian  of  the  souls  iu  every  Parish  in  his 
Diocese.  A  Bishop  is  the  Curate  (to  use  the  word  in  its 
proper  sense)  of  his  Diocese.  And  "Institution"  is  the  act 
by  which  he  devolves  the  cure  of  souls  in  a  Parish  on  the 
Clergyman  whom  he  institutes  to  it.  "  Accipe  curam  tuam, 
et  meam,"  is  the  ancient  form  of  Institution,3  and  contains  an 
appeal  to  God.  Can  a  Bishop,  therefore,  in  conscience,  insti- 
tute a  Clergyman  to  a  cure  of  souls  which  he  has  bought  ? 
Would  he  not,  by  so  doing,  be  a  "  partaker  of  other  men's 
sins"  ?  (1  Tim.  v.  22.) 

And  yet  they,  whom  a  Bishop  admonishes  in  a  spirit  of 
love,  and  whom  he  would  restrain  from  committing  a  heinous 
sin,  and  from  forcing  themselves  into  a  cure  thus  bought, 
and  whom  he  desires  to  save  from  the  consequences  of  that 
sin, — in  this  world  and  in  another, — do  not  regard  him  as  a 
benefactor,  but  count  him  as  an  enemy,  "  because  he  speaks 
to  them  the  truth"  (Gal.  iv.  16). 

But  although  all  these  things  are  against  him,  he  must 
commit  his  cause  in  faith  and  patience  to  God,  and  be  content 
to  suffer  for  the  truth's  sake.    He  must  carefully  consider 

2  The  Lawsuit  of  Walsh  v.  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  (the  Great  Coates 
Case),  cost  the  defendant  about  1000Z.,  which  was  generously  defrayed  by 
the  Diocese. 

3  Gibson,  p.  807.    Burn,  i.  167. 


Duties  of  Bishops  and  Clergy. 


187 


what  is  the  Law  of  Holy  Scripture  and  the  Church,  and  he 
must  act  accordingly.4 

5.  Lastly,  if  the  Clergy,  whom  it  may  concern,  would 
take  due  care  to  enlighten  their  consciences  as  to  the  true 
character  of  Simony;  if  they  would  not  carry  their  con- 
science to  law-books,  but  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  to  the 
judgment  of  the  Church ;  if  they  would  be  on  their  guard 
against  all  secular  allurements  to  obtain  preferment  by 
questionable  means,  and  would  not  entangle  themselves  in 
snares,  and  so  rob  themselves  of  that  peace  of  mind  and 
approval  of  God,  which  every  good  man  will  value  infinitely 
more  than  the  best  living  in  the  world;  and  would  unite 
in  a  deliberate  resolve  to  take  no  part,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  in  any  purchase  of  a  benefice  for  themselves, 
or  in  procuring  any  benefice  by  means  of  any  corrupt 
promise  or  engagement,  and  if  they  would  determine  to 
decline  any  benefice  so  purchased,  or  procured  (and  I  rejoice 
to  know  that  many  of  them  are  so  minded),  then  the  sin  of 
Simony  would  soon  disappear  from  among  us. 

We  may  apply  here  the  solemn  words  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
to  His  disciples,  e<  I  say  unto  you,  that  except  your 
righteousness  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no  case  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven'"  (Matt.  v.  20).  The  Clergy,  the  appointed  Teachers 
of  the  pure  and  perfect  morality  of  the  Gospel,  must  not 
allow  their  consciences  to  be  brought  down  to  the  low  level  of 
secular  jurisprudence ;  they  must  live  above  the  standard  of 
temporal  law-courts.  Temporal  laws,  which  are  framed 
"for  the  lawless  and  disobedient"  (1  Tim.  i.  9),  are  unsafe 

4  The  following  circular  letter,  with  regard  to  Clergymen  acting  as 
Fatrons  for  their  own  benefit,  was  issued  by  the  late  Bishop  of  Exeter : — 

"  Bishojistowc,  Torquay,  28th  March,  1867. 
Dear  Me.  Archdeacon, 

Questions  having  arisen  respecting  the  operation  of  the  Act  12 
Anne,  c.  12,  1  request  you  to  make  known  through  the  Rural  Deans  that 
I  have  thought  it  right  to  decline  to  accept  any  nomination  of  a  Clerical 
Patron  of  himself  to  a  Living,  unless  the  patronage  has  accrued  to  him 
by  gift  or  succession.  This  resolution  of  mine  has  been  taken  as  most 
conformed  to  the  spirit  of  the  Statute. 

1  am,  dear  Mr.  Archdeacon,  Your  faithful  friend  and  brother, 

H.  Exeter." 


1 88 


Miscellanies. 


guides  and  guardians  for  those  whose  work  it  is  to  save 
souls.  The  shrewd  acuteness  of  the  Jurisconsult  (very 
necessary  and  laudable  in  its  own  province)  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  tender  sensitiveness  and  the 
disinterested  self-sacrifice  of  the  Christian  Priest.  An  act 
may  be  Simoniacal  in  the  eye  of  God  and  His  Chm-ch, 
though  no  human  tribunal  may  punish  it.  He  must  look 
upward  to  the  dictates  of  that  higher  Law  "  whose  seat  is 
in  the  bosom  of  God ;  and  whose  voice  is  the  harmony  of  the 
world  "  (Hooker,  i.  xviii.  7). 

The  Clergy  are  entitled  by  the  Law  of  God  to  a  liberal 
maintenance.  The  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire  (Luke 
x.  7).  But  he  who  labours  for  hire  is  a  hireling,  and  is 
condemned  by  Christ  as  such  (John  x.  12, 13).  The  Lord 
hath  ordained  that  they  who  preach  the  Gospel  should  live 
of  the  Gospel  (1  Cor.  ix.  13.  Gal.  vi.  7).  But  woe  unto 
those  who  preach  the  Gospel  in  order  to  live  by  it ;  and  not 
in  order  that  they  to  whom  they  preach  may  live  for  ever 
by  their  ministry.  In  Scripture  the  examples  of  selfishness 
in  Ministers  of  holy  things  are  exposed  to  eternal  infamy  in 
Balaam,  who  loved  the  wages  of  unrighteousness,  and 
prophesied  for  reward  (2  Pet.  ii.  15),  and  in  Hophni  and 
Phinehas,  who  made  men  abhor  the  offering  of  the  Lord,  by 
thinking  of  what  they  could  draw  up  for  themselves  by 
their  own  flesh-hook  (1  Sam.  ii.  12,  14),  and  whose  sin  is 
therefore  said  to  have  been  very  great ;  and  in  Gehazi,  who 
was  punished  with  leprosy  for  not  fearing  to  bring  contempt 
on  his  master  Elisha,  and  on  Elisha's  God,  by  his  covetous- 
ness  (2  Kiugs  v.  22,  26,  27),  and  in  those  of  whom  Micah 
speaks  :  "  The  priests  teach  for  hire,  and  the  prophets  divine 
for  money ;  yet  will  they  lean  upon  the  Lord,  and  say,  Is 
not  the  Lord  among  us  ?  None  evil  can  come  upon  us  " 
(Micah  iii.  11)  ;  and  in  those  teachers,  of  whom  St.  Peter 
speaks,  "  by  reason  of  whom  the  word  of  truth  is  evil 
spoken  of,  who  through  covetousness  with  feigned  words 
make  merchandise  of  men's  souls ;  and  whose  damnation 
now  of  a  long  time  slumbereth  not"  (2  Pet.  ii.  3),  and  in 
the  traitor,  Judas  the  Apostle,  who  sold  his  Master  for  thirty 
pieces  of  silver. 


Conclusion. 


The  Church  of  England,  adopting  the  words  of  Holy 
Scripture,  reminds  her  Priests  at  their  Ordination,  that 
"the  Church  and  Congregation  which  they  must  serve,  is 
no  other  than  the  Spouse  and  Body  of  Christ ;  that  they 
are  His  sheep,  which  He  bought  with  His  death,  and  for 
whom  He  shed  His  Blood  upon  the  Cross."  Shall  any  man 
dare  to  sell  or  buy  the  Spouse  of  Christ  with  money  ? 
Shall  any  man  venture  to  sell  or  buy  the  Body  of  Christ  ? 
By  so  doing,  he  adds  the  sin  of  Judas  to  that  of  Simon 
Magus.  The  Christian  Fathers  do  not  hesitate  to  call  all 
such  persons  "  sellers  of  Christ  5  secular  ti'affickers  in 
spiritual  things,  who  imagine  that  "  godliness  is  a  trade  " 
(1  Tim.  vi.  5).  Shall  any  man  treat  Christian  congrega- 
tions— the  sheep  and  lambs  of  Christ,  which  He  has 
purchased  with  His  own  blood — as  if  they  were  like  the 
beasts  that  perish,  to  be  carried  from  pens  in  market-places 
to  slaughter-houses  in  shambles  ? 

This  is  what  is  done  by  those  Christian  Priests  who,  like 
the  shepherds  denounced  by  Ezekiel,  undertake  the  pastoral 
office  in  order  to  eat  the  fat,  and  clothe  themselves  with  the 
wool  (Ezek.  xxxiv.  2 — 4),  and  to  whom  he  says  in  the  name 
of  God,  "  Behold  1  am  against  the  shepherds,  and  I  will 
require  My  flock  at  their  hands  "  (ver.  7). 

But  let  us  hope  and  pray  that  such  shepherds  as  those,  if 
they  have  been  like  Gehazi  in  sin,  may  be  like  him  in 
repentance  (see  2  Kings  viii.  4) ;  and  that  the  number  may 
greatly  increase  of  those  who  can  say  with  the  Apostle  to 
their  people,  "  I  seek  not  yours,  but  you  "  (2  Cor.  xii.  1 4), 
"I  have  coveted  no  man's  silver  or  gold — for  it  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive"  (Acts  xx.  33  —  35), 
"  neither  at  any  time  used  we  a  cloke  of  covetousness,  God 
is  witness  "  (1  Thess.  ii.  5).  And  whatever  may  be  their 
temporal  condition  in  this  life,  may  they  obey  the  precept 
of  that  blessed  Apostle,  who  out  of  weakness  became  strong, 
and  who  rejoiced  to  follow  his  Master  to  the  Cross,  and 
who,,  having  heard  those  words  which  prescribed  the  test  by 
which  his  love  to  Christ  was  to  be  proved,  "Feed  My 

5  See  Theodoret,  Eccl.  Hist.  i.  3;  and  the  passages  in  Bentley's 
Sermon  on  the  Fifth  November,  near  the  beginning. 


Miscellanies. 


lambs;  feed  My  sheep "  (John  xxi.  15 — 17), left  this  solemn 
charge  to  the  clergy,  "  The  elders  which  are  among  you  I 
exhort,  who  am  also  an  elder,  and  a  witness  of  the  sufferings 
of  Christ,  and  also  a  partaker  of  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed ;  feed  the  flock  of  God,  taking  the  oversight  thereof, 
not  by  constraint  but  willingly ;  not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of 
a  ready  mind ;  neither  as  being  lords  over  God's  heritage, 
but  being  ensamples  to  the  flock ;  and  when  the  Chief 
Shepherd  shall  appear  ye  shall  receive  a  crown  of  glory  that 
fadeth  not  away"  (1  Pet.  v.  1 — 4). 


PRAYER. 

0  LORD  JESU  CHRIST,  Who  didst  twice  drive  the 
buyers  and  sellers  from  the  courts  of  Thy  Father's  House, 
we  pray  Thee  to  cleanse  and  defend  Thy  Church  from  all 
secular  traffic  in  spiritual  things  ;  and  grant  that  being  alway 
preserved  from  false  apostles,  it  may  be  ordered  and  guided 
by  faithful  and  true  Pastors,  to  Thy  honour  and  glory, 
Who  livest  and  reignest  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,  One  God,  world  without  end.  A.men. 


CLERICAL  NON-RESIDENCE: 

An  earnest  Appeal  from  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  to  Clergymen  of 
the  Diocese  who  are  not  resident  in  their  Parishes,  or  who 
may  intend  to  apply  for  leave  of  Non-residence. 


My  Keverend  Brethren, 

The  generous  spirit  of  sympathy  and  confidence 
shown  towards  the  Clergy  by  many  of  the  principal  Laymen 
of  this  County  at  the  meeting  held  yesterday  (Aug.  6,  1870), 
at  Lincoln,  for  the  "Augmentation  of  Poor  Benefices,"  calls 
for  our  grateful  acknowledgments,  and  may  well  stimulate 
us  to  examine  what  are  the  defects  in  our  own  practice 
which  need  reformation. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  these 
is  Clerical  Non-residence. 

In  late  years  this  evil  has  been  greatly  abated,  but  (as 
appears  from  official  returns)  it  requires  further  amendment; 
and  one  of  the  many  advantages  to  be  anticipated  from  the 
design  for  the  improvement  of  Poor  Benefices  is,  that  it  will 
conduce  to  a  further  diminution  of  the  evil. 

The  question,  however,  that  now  presses  upon  us  is  this, 
whether  we  ourselves  may  not  do  much  to  correct  it  ?  I 
would  therefore  invite  you  to  consider  what  our  duty  is  in 
this  respect ;  and,  in  doing  so,  I  feel  persuaded  that  you 
will  receive  in  good  part  that  which  is  now  offered  for  your 
consideration,  from  an  earnest  desire  for  our  common  welfare 
in  time  and  eternity,  and  for  the  honour  of  our  Divine  Master 
and  Judge,  and  for  the  spiritual  benefit  of  His  people  com- 
mitted to  our  charge. 


192 


Miscellanies. 


As  Christ's  ministers,  we  are  bound  to  regard  this  ques- 
tion in  the  light  in  which  it  is  presented  to  us  by  Almighty 
God  in  Holy  Scripture. 

Our  blessed  Lord  applied  a  test  to  St.  Peter,  and  He 
applies  that  test  to  all  His  ministers  :  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas, 
lovest  thou  Me  ?"  1  The  answer  was,  "  Lord,  Thou  knowest 
that  I  love  Thee ; "  and  the  proof  which  our  Saviour  de- 
manded of  that  love  was  prescribed  in  the  commands,  "  Feed 
My  lambs,"  "  Feed  My  sheep,"  "  Tend 2  My  sheep,"— those 
lambs  and  sheep  for  which  the  Good  Shepherd  laid  down 
His  life. 

If  the  Christian  Pastor  is  not  resident  among  his  flock,  he 
cannot  comply  with  these  commands  of  Christ ;  and  if  his 
non-residence  is  not  absolutely  necessary,  he  cannot  in  truth 
be  said  to  love- Christ;  and  we  know  where  it  is  written, 
"If  any  man  love  not  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  let  him  be 
Anathema  Maran-atha."3 

Our  Blessed  Lord  has  also  specified,  as  a  characteristic  of 
the  faithful  shepherd,  that  "  He  calleth  his  own  sheep  by 
name,  and  leadeth  them  out,"  and  "they  know  his  voice;"4 
and  our  Lord  marks  it  as  a  token  of  the  hireling  shepherd, 
that  "  he  leaveth  the  sheep,  and  fleeth,  because  he  careth  not 
for  the  sheep;"5  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  if  He  had  antici- 
pated Christ's  words,  has  said  by  the  prophet,  "  Woe  to  the 
idol  shepherd  that  leaveth  the  flock  !  "6 

With  such  denunciations  as  these  ringing  in  his  ears,  a 
Pastor  who  forsakes  his  flock,  and  quits  his  parish,  from 
motives  of  convenience,  or  because  he  does  not  like  the 
neighbourhood,  or  because  he  thinks  himself  isolated  there, 
or  because  some  other  place  is  more  agreeable  to  his  taste, 
and  who,  by  his  own  absence,  renders  the  neighbourhood 
more  lonely,  and  tempts  others  to  leave  it,  till  it  may  become 
a  spiritual  wilderness,  can  surely  have  little  comfort  in  his 

1  John  xxi.  15. 

2  The  use  of  two  words  (in  the  original),  "  Feed "  and  "  Tend," 
brings  out  more  clearly  the  duty  of  personal  oversight  on  the  part  of  the 
Christian  pastor. 

3  I.e.  "The  Lord  will  come  (to  judge)." — 1  Cor.  xvi.  22. 

4  John  x.  3,  4.  5  John  x.  12,  13.  b  Zech.  xi.  17. 


Remorse  of  non-residents — the  word  "Incumbent"  193 


conscience,  if  he  reflects  seriously  on  the  matter  in  the 
presence  of  Almighty  God,  and  in  forethought  of  his  own 
future  account  at  the  Great  Day  of  reckoning ;  and  if  it 
should  happen,  that  while  absenting  himself  from  the  parish 
committed  to  his  care,  such  a  Pastor  should  be  visited  by 
severe  sickness,  or  be  suddenly  overtaken  by  some  other  cala- 
mity, will  he  not  hear  a  voice  rehearsing  the  question  which 
the  Judge  will  put  to  him  at  that  future  Day  :  "Where  is 
the  flock  that  was  given  thee,  thy  beautiful  flock  ?  "  7 

The  only  wise  and  loving  counsel  that  can  be  given  to 
such  a  Pastor  is  this :  Either  return  at  once  to  thy  parish, 
and  reside  there, — or  else  resign  it. 

The  popular  expression,  a  "  non-resident  incumbent,"  shows 
how  deeply  the  evil  of  non-residence  is  seated.  An  incum- 
bent is  a  person  "  qui  incumbit  operi,"  one  who  bends  him- 
self with  all  his  might  and  main  over  his  work,  and  who 
spends  himself,  and  is  spent,  in  it  and  for  it ;  but  a  non- 
resident Pastor  is  not  an  incumbent  at  all.  He  has  the 
charge  of  "  God's  husbandry," 8  but  he  has  "  put  his  hand  to 
the  plough,  and  has  looked  back," 9 — we  know  what  follows; 
he  has  done  even  worse  than  this,  he  has  left  his  plough 
in  the  furrow,  and  has  forsaken  the  field. 

An  Incumbent  of  a  parish  is  a  person,  who,  when  he  was 
ordained  to  the  Christian  ministry,  made  a  solemn  promise 
in  the  presence  of  God  and  the  public  congregation,  that 
"  he  would  teach  the  people  committed  to  his  charge;"1 
that  "  he  would  use  both  public  and  private  monitions  and 
exhortations,  as  well  to  the  sick  as  to  the  whole  within  his 
cure,"  and  "  would  make  himself  and  his  household  to  be  a 
wholesome  example  and  pattern  to  the  flock  of  Christ." 

Not  one  of  these  things  can  be  done  by  a  Pastor  who  is 
not  resident  among  his  people.  And  at  his  Ordination  he 
was  also  solemnly  warned  in  these  words  :  "  If  it  shall  happen 
that  the  same  Church,  or  any  member  thereof,  take  any  hurt 
or  hindrance  by  reason  of  your  negligence,  you  know  the 
greatness  of  the  fault,  and  also  the  horrible  punishment  that 
will  ensue."2 

7  Jer.  xiii.  20.  8  1  Cor.  iii.  9.  9  Luke  ix.  62. 

1  Ordination  of  Priests.  2  Ordination  of  Priests. 

VOL.  III.  o 


i94 


Miscellanies. 


These  statements  are  grounded  on  the  declarations  of 
Holy  Scripture  :  "  0  son  of  man,  I  have  set  thee  a  watch- 
man unto  the  house  of  Israel ;  if  thou  dost  not  speak  to  warn 
the  wicked  from  his  way,  that  wicked  man  shall  die  in  his 
iniquity,  but  his  blood  will  I  require  at  thine  hand."3  And 
St.  Paul  implies,  that  he  himself  could  not  have  been  clear 
from  the  blood  of  his  flock,  if  he  had  not  declared  to  them 
"the  whole  counsel  of  God."4 

A  benefice  is  assigned  to  a  man  for  work.  "  Beneficium 
est  propter  qfficium."  And  if  the  work  that  can  be  done  is 
not  done,  the  claim  to  the  benefice  is  virtually  cancelled,  and 
a  punishment  for  the  neglect  is  incurred. 

To  those  Clergymen  who  derive  an  income  from  a  Parish 
in  which,  without  absolute  necessity,  they  do  not  personally 
reside,  let  me  earnestly  commend  for  their  consideration  the 
following  solemn  words  of  Almighty  God,  speaking  by  the 
prophet  Ezekiel.  They  may  there  see  a  description  of  them- 
selves :5 — "Woe  be  to  the  Shepherds,  that  do  feed  themselves. 
Should  not  the  Shepherds  feed  the  flocks  ?  Ye  eat  the  fat, 
and  ye  clothe  you  with  the  wool ;  but  ye  do  not  feed  the 
flock  ;  therefore  ye  Shepherds,  hear  the  Word  of  the  Lord, 
thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold  I  am  against  the  Shepherds, 
and  I  will  require  My  flock  at  their  hand." 

"  I  seek  not  yours,  but  you,"6  said  St.  Paul  to  the  Corin- 
thians; but  the  Pastor  who  forsakes  his  parish,  and  yet 
claims  an  income  from  it,  reverses  these  words  of  the 
Apostle;  and,  "  I  seek  not  you,  but  yours,"  is  the  language 
of  Ms  practice. 

In  that  affecting  farewell  charge  which  St.  Paul  delivered 
at  Miletus  to  the  Clergy  of  Ephesus,  when  he  had  sent  for 
them  to  hear  his  apostolic  injunctions,  he  said,  "  Take  heed 
unto  yourselves,  and  to  all  the  flock,  over  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  has  made  you  overseers,  to  feed  the  Church  of  God, 
which  He  hath  purchased  with  His  own  blood;"7  and  thus 
he  declared  the  solemn  truth,  that  a  Pastor's  neglect  of 
the  flock  committed  to  his  care  involves  a  sin  against  the 

'  Ezek.  xxxiii.  7,  8.  4  Acts  xx.  27. 

5  Ezek.  xxxiv.  1—10.  6  2  Cor.  xii.  14. 

7  Acts  xx.  28. 


St.  Paul,  and  non-resident  Pastors. 


!95 


Holy  Ghost,  and  a  sin  against  Christ,  Whose  flock  it  is,  and 
Who  shed  His  blood  for  it.  St.  Paul  said  to  Timothy,  whom 
he  left  at  Ephesus,  when  he  went  into  Macedonia,  "  Give 
attendance  to  reading,  to  exhortation,  to  doctrine  ;  meditate 
upon  these  things,  give  thyself  wholly  to  them,  that  thy 
profiting  may  appear  unto  all." 8  "  I  charge  thee  before 
God,  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Who  shall  judge  the  quick 
and  dead  at  His  appearing  and  His  Kingdom ;  preach  the 
word ;  be  instant  in  season,  out  of  season ;  reprove,  rebuke, 
exhort  with  all  long-suffering  and  doctrine."  9 

The  non-resident  Pastor  does  not  comply  with  these  Apos- 
tolic injunctions;  and  when  he  comes  near  the  end  of  his 
mortal  career,  he  will  be  in  no  condition  to  apply  to  himself 
that  comfortable  assurance  which  the  holy  Apostle,  on  the 
eve  of  his  own  departure,  dei'ived  from  the  thought  of  his 
approaching  dissolution,  and  from  a  retrospect  of  his  own 
ministerial  work  :  "  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept 
the  faith ;  henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of 
righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  Judge,  shall 
give  me  at  that  day."1 

It  is  only  the  faithful,  vigilant,  and  zealous  Pastor  who 
can  cherish  that  hope ;  it  is  only  he,  who  can  look  for  that 
blessed  reward  of  which  St.  Paul's  brother  Apostle 2  speaks 
to  the  presbyters  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  "  Feed  the  flock 
of  God  which  is  among  you,  taking  the  oversight  thereof, 
not  by  constraint,  but  willingly;  not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of 
a  ready  mind.  And  when  the  Chief  Shepherd  shall 
appear,  ye  shall  receive  a  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not 
away." 

In  his  work  on  the  "Pastoral  Care  " 3 — an  excellent  Manual 
for  the  Clergy — Bishop  Burnet  observes,  that  St.  Paul  in 
reckoning  up  the  several  obligations  of  Christians  says, 
"  Having  gifts  differing  according  to  the  grace  that  is  given 
us,  whether  prophecy  (i.  e.  preaching),  let  us  prophesy  (or 


8  1  Tim.  iv.  13—15.  9  2  Tim.  iv.  1,  2. 

1  2  Tim.  iv.  7,  8.  2  1  Pet.  v,  2,  4. 

3  4th  Edit.  Lond.  1736,  p.  32.  I  have  inserted  a  few  words  at  the 
beginning  of  this  quotation,  and  have  varied  one  or  two  of  the  expressions 
in  it. 

o  2 


196 


Miscellanies. 


preach)  according  to  the  proportion  of  faith ;  or  ministry, 
let  us  wait  on  our  ministering ;  or  he  that  teacheth,  on 
teaching ;  or  he  that  exhorteth,  on  exhortation ;  he  that 
ruleth,  let  him  do  it  with  diligence."4  In  his  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  as  he  states  the  dignity  of  the  Clergy  in  this, 
that  they  ought  to  be  accounted  as  "  the  ministers  of  Christ 
and  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God,"  he  adds,  that  "  it  is 
required  in  stewards,  that  a  man  he  found  faithful."  5 

"  In  that  Epistle  he  sets  down  that  perpetual  law,  which 
is  the  foundation  of  all  the  provisions  that  have  been  made 
for  the  Clergy,  '  that  the  Lord  hath  ordained  that  they  which 
preach  the  gospel  should  live  of  the  gospel.'  6  But  if  upon 
this  ground,  the  Laity  have  looked  upon  themselves  as  bound 
to  appoint  a  supply,  that  the  Clergy  might  have  whereon  to 
live,  then  certainly  it  was  intended  that  they  (the  Clergy) 
might  therefore  attend  c  continually  on  the  ministry  of  the 
Word  and  Prayer.'7  They  of  the  Clergy  who  do  their  work 
negligently,  provoke  the  Laity  to  repent  of  their  bounty, 
and  to  deprive  them  of  it ;  certainly,  there  are  no  such 
enemies  to  the  patrimony  and  rights  of  the  Church  as  those 
Pastors  who  eat  the  fat,  but  do  not  feed  the  flock." 

And  again,  he  says,  "  I  think  it  as  plain  as  words  can 
make  anything,  that  such  persons  as  are  dedicated  to  the 
service  of  God  and  of  His  Church,  ought  to  labour  constantly 
and  faithfully,  and  that  in  their  own  persons ;  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  express  a  personal  obligation  in  terms  more  strict 
and  solemn,  than  those  which  are  employed  in  Holy  Scripture 
for  that  purpose ;  and  all  the  returns  of  obedience  and  sub- 
mission, of  esteem  and  support,  being  declared  to  be  due  to 
the  Clergy  on  account  of  their  watching  over  and  feeding 
the  flock  of  God,  those  among  them  who  pretend  to  these, 
without  considering  themselves  as  under  the  other  obliga- 
tions, are  guilty  of  the  worst  kind  of  sacrilege,  in  devouring 
the  things  that  are  sacred,  without  doing  those  duties  for  which 
these  are  due ;  and  what  right  soever  the  Law  of  the  land 
may  give  them,  yet  certainly,  according  to  the  Divine  Law, 
those  who  do  not  wait  at  the  altar  ought  not  to  be  par- 

4  Rom.  xii.  6—8.  s  1  Cor.  iv.  2. 

6  1  Cor.  ix.  14.  r  Acts  vi.  4, 


Pleas  for  non-residence. 


197 


takers  with  the  altar ;  those  who  do  not  minister  about  holy 
things,  ought  not  to  live  of  the  things  of  the  temple ;  nor 
ought  those  who  do  not  preach  the  gospel,  to  live  of  the 
gospel."  8 

I  need  hardly  say,  that  what  has  uow  been  written  is  not 
addressed  to  those  who  by  some  irresistible  necessity  are  com- 
pelled, much  against  their  will,  to  appeal  to  the  Bishop  for 
leave  of  non-residence.  But  then,  in  frankness  and  affection 
it  must  be  added,  that  such  cases  are  very  few ;  and  I  would 
earnestly  implore  all  who  have  any  intentions  of  applying 
for  such  permission,  to  consider  carefully  what  has  been  now 
said,  and  to  examine  their  own  consciences  in  the  presence  of 
God,  whether  they  are  justified  in  asking  for  it. 

Bodily  incapacity,  which  disables  a  man  from  doing  the 
public  duty  of  the  Church  in  the  Lord's  house,  is  not  an 
adequate  reason  for  such  a  request.  A  Clergyman  who  has 
not  physical  strength  to  preach  a  sermon  from  the  pulpit,  or 
to  utter  a  prayer  in  the  church,  may  yet  be  an  inestimable 
blessing  to  his  parish.  The  example  of  his  patient  suffering 
is  a  daily  sermon  to  his  people.  The  prayers  said  in  his 
family,  and  breathed  from  his  sick-bed,  bring  down  bene- 
dictions upon  it.  His  ministerial  experience,  his  fatherly 
management  and  counsel,  are  of  unspeakable  benefit  to  the 
Curate.  The  Parsonage  is  still  the  centre  of  the  Christian 
charities  of  the  parish.  Blessings  flow  from  it  to  every 
cottage,  and  although  the  Pastor  himself  may  be  disabled, 
yet  there  may  be  some  wise  and  affectionate  members  of  his 
family — a  dear  wife  or  children — dwelling  under  his  roof 
who  may  be  like  sisters  of  mercy,  or  even  like  ministering 
angels,  going  forth  from  the  threshold  of  the  Parsonage  on 
errands  and  embassies  of  love  to  the  poor.  The  parish  school 
feels  the  benefit  of  their  fostering  care.  The  parish  choir  is 
trained  by  them,  or  is  helped  by  their  presence  and  encourage- 
ment. The  Parish  would  lose  all  these  things,  if  the  Pastor 
were  non-resident.  And  how  many  benefits  does  the  fainilj' 
of  the  Pastor  receive  by  diffusing  such  benefits  to  the 
parish !  Their  affections  are  exercised ;  they  become 
objects  of  love  and  gratitude  to  all  around ;  their  life  on 
s  Burnet's  "  Pastoral  Care,"  p.  4t. 


198 


Miscellanies. 


earth  is  a  holy  and  happy  life,  and  it  is  the  best  preparation 
for  heaven. 

This  beautiful  picture  is  not  always  realized;  but  even 
where  it  is  not,  yet  it  would  be  a  great  fallacy  to  suppose 
that,  because  a  clergyman  is  unable  to  do  his  duty  publicly 
in  the  parish  church,  he  is  therefore  justified  in  asking  for 
leave  of  non-residence.  He  may  "  do  his  duty  "  in  many 
other  ways  in  his  parish ;  and  as  long  as  this  is  the  case,  he 
ought  to  be  resident  there,  or  else  to  resign  his  cure,  and  to 
make  room  for  some  one  else,  who  will  reside  and  take  charge 
of  it.9 

We  may  now  pass  on  to  consider  what  is  required  in  regard 
to  residence,  by  the  Law  of  the  land.1  "  A  beneficed  clergy- 
man, who  does  not  reside  personally  on  his  benefice  nine 
months  of  the  year,  without  leave  of  non-residence  from  the 
Bishop  of  the  diocese,  or  other  exemption  recognized  by  law, 
forfeits  one-third  part  of  the  annual  value  of  his  benefice,  if 
such  absence  exceeds  three  months ;  and  if  such  absence 
exceeds  six  months,  he  forfeits  one-half  of  the  value  ;  and  if 
it  exceeds  eight  months,  he  forfeits  two-thirds  of  the  value  ; 
and  if  such  absence  is  continued  for  the  whole  year,  he  forfeits 
three-fourths  of  the  value."  2 

These  forfeitures  are  to  be  sued  for  in  the  Bishop's  Court ; 
and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Churchwardens,  at  Visitations,  to 

9  A  learned  prelate  who  once  filled  the  see  of  Lincoln,  Bishop  Gibson, 
justly  observes,  in  his  "  Directions  to  his  Clergy  (1721),"  that  there  are 
many  important  duties  performed  and  benefits  conferred  by  means  of 
residence,  altogether  irrespective  of  the  performance  of  the  public  offices 
of  the  Church.  "  Such,"  he  says,  "  are  a  daily  oversight,  and  a  constant 
check  and  restraint  upon  evil  practices,  and  upon  the  growth  of  corrupt 
customs  and  habits  among  the  people ;  and  that  which  exhorts  and 
reproves  most  effectually  of  all,  Ike  daily  sight  and  influence  of  a  good 
example ;  to  which  we  must  add  the  being  at  hand  to  observe  and  com- 
pose differences ;  to  assist  the  rich  with  counsel,  the  sick  with  comfort, 
the  poor  and  distressed  with  relief,  and  to  perform  all  neighbourly  and 
charitable  offices,  which  are  the  means  of  endearing  ministers  to  their 
people,  and  of  opening  a  passage  into  their  hearts  for  spiritual  instruc- 
tions." 

1  The  principal  legislative  enactments  bearing  on  this  subject  are  1  &  2 
Vict.  c.  106,  and  13  &  14  Vict.  c.  98. 
*  See  1  &  2  Vict.  c.  106,  s.  32. 


Laws  on  non-residence.  199 

make  presentments  of  the  non-residence  of  the  Minister  of 
their  parish;  and  the  Bishop  may  direct  that  the  forfeiture8 
incurred  by  him  for  non-residence  may  be  applied  to  augment 
the  benefice,  or  to  improve  the  parsonage.3 

In  all  cases  of  non-residence  without  leave,  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  Bishop  to  require  residence,  by  monition ;  and  if  the 
reasons  alleged  for  non-residence  are  not  satisfactory,  to 
proceed,  after  a  second  requisition,  to  the  sequestration  of 
the  benefice  ;  and  this  sequestration  involves  a  forfeiture  of 
part  of  the  profits  of  the  benefice ;  and  if  the  sequestration 
continues  for  a  year,  the  benefice  becomes  void,  and  then 
"  the  Patron  of  such  benefice  may  present  or  nominate  to  the 
same,  as  if  the  incumbent  were  dead."  4 

As  to  the  reasons  for  non-residence,  it  seems  to  be  sup- 
posed by  some  that  a  Bishop  is  at  liberty  to  grant  leave  of 
non-residence  for  any  cause,  at  his  discretion.  A  clergyman 
lately  applied  to  me  for  leave  of  non-residence,  in  order  that 
he  might  attend  on  a  sick  mother  in  a  distant  part  of  the 
country.  The  sickness  of  a  parent  may  be  a  reason  for  re- 
signing a  benefice,  but  it  is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  leaving 
the  souls  of  a  flock  to  suffer  from  spiritual  sickness,  and 
perhaps  to  incur  spiritual  death. 

The  Law  is  precise  in  specifying  and  defining  the  causes 
for  which  a  bishop  may  (in  no  case  must)  grant  a  licence  of 
non-residence. 

They  are  these  : — 

1.  Where  a  clergyman  is  "prevented  from  residence  by  any 
incapacity  of  mind  or  body."  Incapacity  for  doing  duty  is 
not  specified  as  a  reason,  but  incapacity  for  residing  in  the 
parish,  which  is  a  different  thing.  If  the  incapacity  is  not 
such  as  to  prevent  him  from  residence,  the  licence  ought  not 
to  be  asked  for. 

2.  He  may  have  licence  "for  a  period  not  exceeding  six 
months,  on  account  of  the  dangerous  illness  of  his  wife  or 
child  making  part  of  his  family  ;"  but  "  no  such  licence  is  to 
be  renewed,  save  with  the  allowance  of  the  Archbishop  of  the 
province." 

3.  Where  there  is  no  house  of  residence,  or  where  the 
3  1  &  2  Vict.  c.  106,  s.  114.  4  Ibid.  ss.  54,  56,  58. 


20O 


]\Iiscellanies. 


house  is  unfit  for  residence.  But  in  such  cases  he  must 
reside  in  some  other  house  within  three  miles  of  the  parish 
church,  unless  it  be  certified  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
Bishop  by  the  rural  dean  and  two  neighbouring  incumbents, 
that  no  convenient  house  for  residence  can  be  obtained 
within  the  parish,  or  within  three  miles  of  the  parish 
church.  And  in  all  cases  the  house  of  residence,  wherever 
it  is,  is  to  be  kept  in  good  and  sufficient  repair  at  the  cost 
of  the  incumbent. 

No  licence  of  non-residence  continues  in  force  after  the 
31st  of  December  in  the  year  next  after  the  year  in  which 
the  licence  is  granted. 

No  licence  of  non-residence  can  be  granted  (or,  if  granted, 
is  of  any  validity)  unless  it  be  obtained  by  a  petition  pre- 
sented by  the  clergyman,  and  drawn  up  in  a  certain  form 
prescribed  by  law,  and  containing  a  statement  of  the  following 
particulars : — 

1.  Whether  the  clergyman  intends  to  perform  the  duties 
of  the  benefice  in  person ;  and  if  so,  at  what  distance  from 
the  church  he  purposes  to  reside. 

2.  If  he  intends  to  employ  a  curate,  what  salary  he  purposes 
to  give. 

3.  Whether  such  curate  will  reside  in  the  parish ;  whether 
in  the  parsonage,  or  in  what  other  house  ;  and  if  not,  at  what 
distance  from  the  parish  church. 

4.  Whether  such  curate  serves  any  other  parish,  or 
officiates  in  any  other  church  or  chapel. 

5.  The  annual  value  and  population  of  the  benefice  of  the 
clergyman  applying  for  leave  of  non-residence  are  also  to 
be  stated ;  and  the  number  of  churches  or  chapels  in 
such  benefice  ;  and  the  date  of  the  petitioner's  admission  to 
the  benefice. 

It  is  declared  that  it  "  shall  not  be  lawful  for  the  Bishop 
to  grant  any  such  licence/'  except  after  such  petition,  and 
"  ttnless  such  petition  shall  contain  a  statement  of  the  several 
particulars  aforesaid.'"  4 

"  Every  such  petition  shall  be  filed  in  the  registry  of  the 
diocese  by  the  registrar  thereof,  and  shall  be  open  to  inspec- 
5  1  &  2  Vict.  c.  106,  s.  42. 


The  Incumbents'1  Resignation  Act.  201 


tion,  and  copies  thereof  may  be  made  with  the  leave  of  the 
Bishop." 

By  the  stringency  of  such  penalties  as  these,  the  Law  has 
clearly  shown  in  what  light  it  regards  Non-residence. 

Let  me  also  remind  you  here  that  by  a  recent  Statute, 
"The  Incumbents'  Resignation  Act/'  34  &  35  Vict.  chap. 
45,  it  is  provided,  that  a  Clergyman  who  is  permanently  in- 
capacitated by  infirmity  may  resign  his  benefice,  and  receive 
a  pension  equal  to  one-third  of  the  net  annual  value  of  the 
benefice. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  many  Incumbents,  in  such  circum- 
stances, will  take  advantage  of  this  enactment :  and  you 
will,  I  trust,  bear  with  me  when  I  say  that  this  legislative 
measure  lays  a  new  obligation  on  the  Diocesan  to  place 
before  non-resident  Incumbents,  with  additional  force,  the 
alternative  either  to  resign  their  benefice,  or  to  reside  upon  it. 

But  it  is  our  privilege,  my  reverend  brethren,  to  live  in  a 
higher  atmosphere,  and  to  do  service,  "not  for  wrath,  but 
for  conscience  sake/5  6  and  I  would  cherish  the  hope,  that  it 
may  never  be  necessary  to  resort  to  the  penalties  of  the  law, 
which  is  "  not  made  for  a  righteous  man,  but  for  the  lawless 
and  disobedient,  for  the  ungodly  and  for  sinners ;"  7  and 
that  the  love  of  Christ,  Who  shed  His  blood  for  His  sheep, 
and  for  us  their  shepherds,  will  constrain  us,  and  draw  us 
irresistibly  with  the  "cords  of  a  man;"8  and  that  we 
shall  rejoice  in  His  service,  which  is  perfect  freedom,  and 
shall  do  our  work,  not  with  servile  fear,  but  with  filial 
love,  and  angelic  alacrity,  ever  remembering  that  "  He 
that  winneth  souls  is  wise,"  9  and  that  "  They  that  are  wise 
shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament ;  and  they 
that  turn  many  to  righteousness,  as  the  stars  for  ever  and 
ever."  1 

I  am,  my  reverend  brethren,  your  faithful  friend  and 
brother, 

C.  LINCOLN. 


6  Rom.  xiii.  5.  7  1  Tim.  i.  9.  s  Hos.  xi.  4. 

9  Prov.  xi.  30.  1  Dan.  xii.  3. 


ON  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE. 


In  1854 — 1857,  the  question  of  constituting  a  "  Divorce 
Court "  was  debated  in  Parliament.  It  was  my  endeavour, 
in  the  discharge  of  my  duty  as  Canon  of  Westminster  (a 
position  which  I  had  the  honour  of  holding  for  nearly 
twenty-five  years — from  1844  to  18C9),  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  public  to  the  character  and  tendencies  of  that  measure, 
commonly  called  the  Divorce  Bill,  in  Discourses  delivered  on 
the  subject  in  Westminster  Abbey  (in  1857),  which  were 
published  in  my  "  Occasional  Sermons  " — now  out  of  print. 

Portions  of  them  will  be  reproduced  here. 

The  apprehensions  expressed  in  those  Discourses  have 
been  realized.  Divorce,  before  that  time,  was  scarcely 
mentioned  in  Christian  Society  among  us,  without  a  feeling 
of  shame  and  a  shudder.  But  the  newspaper  reports  of 
the  proceedings  in  the  Divorce  Court — then  constituted 
by  Law — have  now  made  it  familiar.  And  the  examples  of 
conjugal  infidelity  in  fashionable  life  and  in  high  rank — 
displayed  to  public  view  with  all  their  loathsome  details,  have 
destroyed  much  of  that  salutary  abhorrence  with  which 
men  recoiled  from  such  things,  as  too  revolting  to  be  named. 
They  have  also  had  the  effect  of  weakening  the  respect  of 
the  lower  and  middle  ranks  of  society  for  the  upper  classes, 
and  are  doing  the  work  of  Socialism. 

It  is  too  much  to  expect  that  the  Divorce  Act  will  be 
repealed,  for  some  time  to  come.  But  it  is  possible  to 
create  a  more  wholesome  public  opinion  on  the  subject,  and 
so  either  to  prepare  the  way  for  repeal,  or  at  least  to 
diminish  greatly  the  number  of  cases  in  which  it  is  applied. 
This  is  a  work  for  the  Clergy  and  Laity  of  the  Church ;  and 
perhaps  the  considerations  urged  in  the  following  pages 


Oil  Divorce. 


203 


may,  with  the  Divine  Blessing,  be  of  some  use  in  that 
respect. 

One  or  two  words  more  by  way  of  preface. 

When  the  ^Divorce  Bill  was  before  Parliament,  my  con- 
viction was  (see  p.  222) — and  that  conviction  has  since  been 
strengthened,  that  the  cause  of  the  advocates  of  the  Divorce 
Bill  was  promoted  by  some  of  its  leading  opponents,  who 
contended  for  the  absolute  indissolubility  of  marriage,  in 
opposition  to  our  Lord's  words  in  two  places  of  St.  Matthew. 
This  was  an  unscriptural  and  anti-scriptural  position  (see 
pp.  207 — 211),  and  therefore  untenable  ;  and  the  misfortune 
also  was,  that  it  identified  those  who  held  it  with  the  Church 
of  Rome,  which  with  rigid  strictness  affirms  Marriage  to  be 
indissoluble,  and  yet,  with  inconsistent  and  venal  laxity, 
readily  grants  dispensations  for  Divorce  (see  pp.  212,  229). 
Some  profitable  instruction,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  following 
pages,  may  be  derived  from  these  facts. 

Let  me  mention  also  here,  that  being  resident  in  London 
at  the  time,  I  was  requested  to  act  as  Secretary  by  a  body  of 
Clergymen,  which  set  on  foot  a  "  Declaration  "  against  the 
Bill,  and  circulated  it  in  every  Parish  in  England  and  Wales. 
Many  thousands  of  signatures  were  appended  to  that  De- 
claration, which  was  presented  to  the  Prime  Minister.  Un- 
happily he  had  announced  his  resolve  to  carry  the  Bill 
through  Parliament ;  but  he  made  one  concession  in  con- 
sequence of  the  Declaration,  viz.  that  no  Clergyman  should 
be  required  by  law  to  solemnize  the  marriage  of  any  person 
who  had  been  found  guilty  in  the  Divorce  Court. 


PART  I. 

ON  DIVORCE. 

The  Marriage  Union  is  the  source  of  household  charities. 
If  this  fountain  is  preserved  pure,  the  streams  will  be 
healthful ;  but  if  it  be  sullied,  it  will  pour  forth  waters  of 
sin  and  sorrow,  diffusing  a  baleful  influence  in  Families  and 


204 


Miscellanies. 


Nations.  Marriage  is  a  Divine  Institution.  Holy  Scripture 
teaches  us  that  the  first  Man  was  made  in  the  Divine 
Image,  and  that  Woman  was  created  by  God  out  of  Man. 
One  Man,  and  one  Woman,  formed  by  God  out  of  Man, 
composed  the  human  family.  And  man,  being  taught  of 
God,  said  of  woman,  "  This  is  bone  of  my  bone,  and  flesh 
of  my  flesh/"  And  so  near  and  dear  was  the  intimacy 
thus  cemented  between  the  man  and  his  wife,  that  it  is 
declared  in  Holy  Scripture  to  surpass  even  the  filial  rela- 
tion ;  "  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  his 
mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife;  and  they  twain 
shall  be  one  flesh."2  Thus  Marriage  is  an  Institution 
coeval  with  the  Creation ;  and  the  covenant  made  by  God 
cannot  be  unmade  by  man;  "What  God  hath  joined 
together,  let  not  man  put  asunder."3 

Marriage  was  beautified  and  sanctified  at  the  beginning ; 
and  fresh  honours  awaited  it  at  the  second  Creation,  when 
Christ,  Who  had  "made  the  world,"4  came  down  from 
heaven  to  "make  all  things  new."5  The  eternal  Word  of 
God  espoused  our  human  Nature,  and  joined  it  to  the 
Nature  of  God.  Being  born  of  a  woman,  He  raised  woman- 
hood from  its  low  estate.  He,  the  Second  Adam,  formed 
to  Himself  a  Church,  the  spiritual  Eve,  the  mother  of  all 
living,6  from  His  wounded  side  as  He  slept  in  death  on  the 
Cross;  and  He  represents  the  dearness  of  that  union 
between  Himself  and  the  Church  under  the  figure  of 
Marriage.  Christ  is  the  Bridegroom;7  the  Church  is  the 
Bride.3  "  He  gave  Himself  for  her,  and  loveth  and 
cherisheth  her  as  His  own  flesh." 3  And  when  she  has  been 
purified  from  the  taint  of  this  careworn  world,1  she  will  be 
presented  to  Him  "a  glorious  Church,  not  having  spot  or 
wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing,  but  prepared  as  a  Bride  adorned 
for  her  husband,2  in  pure  raiment,  clean  and  white ;  "  and 

1  Gen.  ii.  23.  2  Gen.  ii.  24.    Matt.  xix.  5. 

3  Matt.  xix.  6.  4  John  i.  3.    Heb.  i.  2. 

5  Rev.  xxi.  5.  6  Gen.  iii.  20. 

1  Matt.  ix.  15.   John  iii.  29.  8  Rev.  xxi.  2. 

,J  Eph.  v.  25.  1  Eph.  v.  27. 

2  Rev.  xxi.  2. 


True  character  of  Marriage  :  Divorce  Act.  205 


her  espousals  will  bo  celebrated  by  Angels,  and  she  will  be 
for  ever  with  the  Lord. 

Thus  Christ  by  His  Incarnation  hallowed  Wedlock ;  and 
therefore  the  Apostle  proclaims  it  to  be  a  "  great  Mystery.3 
Whatever  therefore  impairs  the  strength,  or  mars  the  beauty 
of  the  Marriage  Covenant,  is  an  offence  against  God,  and 
against  our  compassionate  Redeemer,  and  may  expect  to 
be  visited  with  chastisements  from  Him,  Who  is  King  of 
Kings  and  Judge  of  all. 

In  the  last  twenty  years  great  changes  have  taken  place 
among  us  with  regard  to  the  Marriage  Contract.4  A 
marriage  may  now  be  performed  as  a  secular  bargain, 
without  any  benediction  from  Him  who  instituted  it.  We 
have  sought  for  and  obtained  facilities  for  Marriage  ;  and 
we  now  seek  facilities  for  Divorce.  The  conjugal  knot  can 
be  tied  so  easily,  that  we  call  for  easy  modes  of  untying  it. 
Perhaps  our  desecration  of  Marriage  may  be  punished  by 
frequency  of  Divorce. 

Hitherto,  no  Judicial  Tribunal  has  been  empowered  in 
England  to  dissolve  the  bond  of  Matrimony.  Such 
Divorces  as  take  place  among  us  are  effected  by  special 
Acts  of  the  Legislature,  and  are  consequently  rare,  and  are 
penal  privileges  of  the  rich.6  The  poor  are  exempt  from 
them.  We  do  not  now  inquire  whether  this  is  a  right  state 
of  things.  But  such  has  been  our  condition  for  about  a 
century  and  a  half.6 

But  an  important  change  is  meditated. 

It  is  proposed  that  a  Judicial  Tribunal  (to  be  called  a 
Court  of  Divorce)  should  now  be  constituted,  with  power  to 

s  Eph.  v.  32. 

*  Especially  by  6  &  7  Will.  IV.  c.  85. 

5  Between  the  Reformation  and  the  end  of  the  17th  century,  i.e.  for  a 
period  of  150  years,  the  whole  number  of  Divorce  Bills  was  not  more 
than  three  or  four.  In  the  eighteenth  century  they  increased  to  130;  and 
the  average  of  Divorce  Bills  in  the  last  ten  years  has  been  about  four  a 
year. 

G  On  this  subject,  in  reference  to  England,  see  Reform.  Legum,  De 
Adulteriis  et  Divortiis,  pp.  49 — 58 ;  Canons  of  1597  (Cardwell,  p.  154), 
Canons  of  1604,  cv.  cvi.  cvii. ;  Pari.  Hist.  vol.  xxxv.  pp.  226  —  326,  and 
the  Report  of  the  Commission  on  the  Law  of  Divorce,  1853,  with  Lord 
Redisdale's  Protest,  and  Phillimore,  Eccl.  Law,  pp.  827 — 830. 


206 


Miscellanies. 


dissolve  the  Marriage  Contract;  and  that  either  of  the 
parties  who  may  be  divorced  by  sentence  of  that  Tribunal, 
should  be  allowed  to  marry  again.7 

Christ  says  in  His  Gospel,  "Whosoever  shall  put  away 
his  wife,  except  it  be  for  fornication,  committeth  adultery/' 
and  "  Whosoever  marrieth  her  that  is  put  away  committeth 
adultery/' 

But  yet,  we  have  now  to  deplore,  that  a  legislative 
measure  has  at  this  time  advanced  far  towards  its  con- 
summation, which  would  enable  a  woman  divorced  for 
conjugal  infidelity,  to  contract  a  new  marriage,  and  which 
would  even  require  the  Church  of  Christ  to  invoke  His 
benediction  on  those  unhallowed  Marriages,  which  He  in 
His  Holy  Word  has  condemned  as  adulterous. 

Christ  is  now  sitting  enthroned  in  majesty  and  glory  at 
God's  right  Hand,  as  King  of  kings ;  He  is  now  looking 
down  on  this  Nation.  He  is  trying  the  allegiance  of  the 
People  of  England,  and  of  her  Rulers,  temporal  and 
spiritual :  He  is  testing  the  obedience  of  His  Ministers  ; 
He  is  watching  us  one  and  all.  And  according  to  our  acts 
in  this  present  emergency  will  be  our  reward  for  weal 
or  woe. 

Here,  then,  is  a  subject  of  solemn  importance  to  us  all. 
The  happiness  of  Families,  the  security  of  States,  depend  on 
the  integrity  of  the  Marriage  Covenant.  The  eternal  wel- 
fare of  immortal  souls  is  at  stake. 

We  may  now  be  about  to  enter  on  a  new  career  of  social 
existence.  It  is,  therefore,  incumbent  on  us  to  inquire, — 
What  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  concerning  Marriage  and 
Divorce  ? 

Especially  is  it  the  duty  of  the  Clergy, — the  Watchmen 
of  the  house  of  Israel, — to  declare  the  counsel  of  God  in  this 

7  Amongst  the  provisions  of  the  Bill  referred  to  is  the  following  :  — 
Liberty  to  Parties  to  marry  again.  §  38.  "When  the  time  herehy 
limited  for  appealing  against  any  decree  dissolving  a  marriage  shall  have 
expired,  and  no  appeal  shall  have  been  presented  against  such  decree,  or 
if  in  the  result  of  any  appeal  such  marriage  shall  be  declared  to  be 
dissolved,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  parties  thereto  to  marry  again,  as  if 
the  prior  marriage  had  been  dissolved  by  the  death  of  the  other  party 
thereto." 


Our  Lord's  declarations  in  St.  Matthew.  207 


matter,  and  they  will  not  be  pure  from  the  blood  of  the 
souls  of  those  committed  to  their  charge,  if  they  shrink  from 
this  duty. 

Let  us,  then,  consult  the  oracles  of  God,  and  hearken  to 
the  voice  of  Him  Who  instituted  Matrimony, and  has  invested 
it  with  divine  beauty,  and  made  it  the  nearest  of  human 
relations,  and  has  transfigured  it  into  an  image  of  love  and 
felicity  and  glory,  transcendiug  any  that  was  ever  seen  even 
in  Paradise, — by  consecrating  it  into  a  picture  of  His  own 
espousals  in  Heaven.  Let  us  resort  to  Christ  for  instruction 
concerning  Marriage  ; — let  us  sit  at  His  feet, — and  listen  to 
His  words. 

We  read  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  that  "  The  Pharisees 
came  to  Him,  tempting  Him,  and*  saying  unto  Him,  Is  it 
lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  for  every  cause  ?  "  8 

They  came  tempting  Him  :  they  had  probably  heard  that 
He  had  declared  to  His  disciples  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,9  "  It  hath  been  said,  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his 
wife,  let  him  give  her  a  bill  of  divorcement :  but,  I  say  unto 
you,  That  whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  saving  for  the 
cause  of  fornication,  causeth  her  to  commit  adultery." 

Doubtless  this  doctrine  had  a  strange  sound  in  the  ears  of 
the  Pharisees.  Their  practice  was  to  put  away  their  wives 
for  trivial  causes ;  and  they  imagined  that  such  a  custom 
could  be  justified  by  the  law  of  Moses,  in  the  twenty-fourth 
chapter  of  Deuteronomy.  They  wished  to  persuade  the 
people  that  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  was  contrary  to  the  Law  of 
Moses,  which  was  Divine;  and  that  therefore  Jesus  could 
not  be  a  Prophet  sent  from  God.  And  they  imagined  that 
they  had  now  a  fair  opportunity  of  doing  so.  They  resorted 
to  an  artifice  like  that  employed  by  them  on  another  occasion 
when  they  brought  to  our  Lord  a  Woman  taken  in  Adultery.1 
Moses,  in  the  law,  they  then  said,  commanded  that  such 
should  be  stoned  ;  but  what  sayest  Thou  ?  This  they  said, 
tempting  Him.  On  that  occasion  they  thought  that  they 
could  show  that  our  Lord  contravened  the  Law  of  Moses  by 
laxity,  and  now  they  would  prove  that  He  contradicted  it  by 
s  Matt.  xix.  3.  9  Matt.  v.  31.  1  John  viii.  3. 


Miscellanies. 


severity.  Our  Lord,  therefore,  refers  them  to  Moses  himself. 
He  sends  them  to  the  first  Book  of  Moses.  Are  ye  so  little 
versed  in  the  writings  of  Moses,  have  ye  not  read  (He  says), 
what  he  records  in  the  first  page  of  those  writings,  concern- 
ing the  institution  of  Marriage  ?  "  God  made  them  male  and 
female,"  and  said  by  Adam's  voice  teaching  all  his  children, 
"that  for  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  father  and  mother,  and 
cleave  unto  his  wife  ;  and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh.  .  . 
What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put 
asunder."  2 

"Why  then,"  replied  the  Pharisees,  "did  Moses  command 
to  give  a  writing  of  divorcement,  and  to  put  her  away  ?  "  3 

The  reply  of  our  Lord  was  :  Moses  did  not  command  any 
one  to  put  away  his  wife.  No  ;  Moses  taught  you,  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  what  Marriage  is.  He  showed  you  that 
God  made  in  the  beginning  but  one  man  and  one' woman ; 
and  that,  in  order  to  declare  their  intimate  union,  God  made 
Woman  out  of  Man ;  and  that  Adam  signified  that  origin 
even  by  her  name 4  .  .  .  .  "  She  shall  be  called  Woman, 
because  she  was  taken  out  of  man."  5  Have  ye  not  read  these 
things  ?  Hid  not  God  Himself  write  them  by  the  hand  of 
Moses  ?  .  .  .  But  because,  when  He  spake,  ye  would  not 
heai-ken,  therefore  He  punished  you  for  the  hardness  of  your 
hearts.  He  did  not  resist  your  obstinate  and  rebellious 
waywardness;  He  suffered  you  to  put  away  your  wives.  He 
chose  your  delusions,  and  corrected  you  by  your  own 

2  Ab  exordio  conditionis  humanse  (says  St.  Jerome,  adv.  Jovinian.)  non 
dabatur  repudium. 

3  It  will  be  seen  on  examination  of  tbe  original  words  in  Deut.  xxiv.  1, 
tbat  tbe  command  is  bypotbetical,  i.  e.  if  they  put  away  tbeir  wives,  tbey 
must  use  a  particular  form,  not  oral,  but,  in  writing;  which  supplied 
time  for  deliberation,  and  being  written  by  a  certain  class,  under  certain 
conditions,  gave  occasion  for  dehortation  by  wise  and  grave  persons. 
See  S.  Aug.  c.  Faust,  xix.  26,  who  well  says,  "  Non  ait  Dominus  '  Qui 
voluerit,  dimittat  uxorem  suam  ;'  sed  utique  nolebat  dimitti  uxorem  a 
viro,  Qui  banc  interposuit  moram,  ut  in  discidium  animus  pneceps  libelli 
eonscriptione  refractus  absisteret,  et  quid  inali  esset  uxorem  dimittere 
cogitaret  ;"  and  because  these  libelli  could  only  be  written  by  advisers 
learned  in  the  law.    See  also  Buxtorfii  Synagog.  Jud.  c.  xl. 

4  Gen.  ii.  23. 

5  Ishah,  Hebr.  Woman,  from  Ish,  Hebr.  Man.    So  Virgo  from  Yir. 


Meaning  of  Christ's  words  in  St.  Matthew.  209 


wickedness/  that  ye  might  see  that  wherein  a  man  sinneth, 
therein  he  is  also  punished.7  He  did  this  in  the  same  way 
as  God  gave  Balaam  leave  to  go,  and  punished  him  by  means 
of  his  journey ;  and  as  He  gave  the  Israelites  a  king  in  His 
anger,  and  punished  them  by  the  king  they  had  chosen. 
"For  with  the  holy,  0  Lord,  Thou  shalt  be  holy,  and  with  a 
perfect  man  Thou  shalt  be  perfect.  With  the  clean  Thou 
shalt  be  clean,  and  with  the  fro  ward  Thou  shalt  learn 
frowarduess."  8 

Therefore,  for  the  hardness  of  your  hearts,  Moses  suffered 
you  to  put  away  your  wives.  But  this  was  a  mark  of  your 
degeneracy.  For  from  the  beginning  it  was  not  so.  And 
our  Lord  may  be  supposed  to  say,  I  am  come  to  bring 
things  back  to  what  they  were  at  the  beginning.  I  am 
come  to  soften  your  hard  hearts.  If  ye  will  listen  to  Me, 
and  not  rebel  against  My  Spirit,  "  I  will  take  away  your 
stony  heart,  and  give  you  a  heart  of  flesh/'9  Think  not  that 
I  am  come  to  destroy  the  Law.  No  ;  I  am  come  to  awaken 
its  dumb  voice,  and  to  quicken  its  dormant  spirit,  and  to 
write  it  on  your  hearts  softened  by  divine  grace.  Think  not 
to  set  the  Law  against  the  Gospel,  and  Moses  against  Christ. 
The  Law  is  fulfilled  in  the  Gospel,  and  Moses  is  perfected  in 
Christ.  Now,  therefore,  hearken  to  Him  Who  knows  your 
thoughts,  and  will  reply  to  them  because  He  is  God,  and 
Who  is  the  Author  of  the  Law,  and  is  come  to  restore  and 
consummate  it.  For  before  Moses  was  I  am.  "  I  say  unto 
you,  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  except  it  be  for 
fornication,  and  shall  marry  another,  committeth  adultery ; 
and  whoso  marrieth  her  which  is  put  away  doth  commit 
adultery." 

Such  is  the  sentence  of  Christ. 

Let  us  consider  it  attentively. 

And  first,  let  us  examine  this  sentence.  "  Whosoever 
shall  put  away  his  wife,  except  it  be  for  fornication,  and 
shall  marry  another,  committeth  adultery." 

Here  the  question  arises,  What  does  our  Lord  mean  by 
putting  away  ?    Does  He  mean  Divorce, — that  is,  dissolution 

u  Isa.  lxvi.  4.    Jer.  ii.  19.  *  Wisd.  xi.  10. 

*  Ps.  xviii.  25.  »  Ezek.  xi.  19. 

VOL.  III.  p 


2  IO 


Miscellanies. 


of  the  marriage  bond?  or  only  separation  of  the  parties, 
without  such  dissolution  ?  • 

This  question  may  be  answered  as  follows  : — 
1.  By  reference  to  the  inquiry  of  the  Phai'isees,  Is  it 
lawful  to  put  away  for  every  cause?  By  putting  away  they 
did  not  mean  separation  only  of  the  parties,  they  meant 
dissolution  of  the  alliance.  They  meant  Divorce.  They 
referred  to  the  bill  of  divorcement,  which  was  called  a  Bill 
of  cutting  off?  and  which  dissolved  the  marriage  bond,  with 
a  view  to  a  second  alliance.3  Our  Lord  was  replying  to 
their  question ;  He  used  the  same  word  as  they  had  used, 
and  He  used  it  in  the  same  sense.  He  is,  therefore,  speak- 
ing of  Divorce. 

Again,  the  word  used  throughout  this  passage,  and  in  the 
parallel  one,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  for  putting  away, 
is  diroXvco,  a  word  which  always  signifies  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment (as  its  etymology  suggests),  to  loose  from  a  bond. 
Hence,  again,  we  are  brought  to  the  conclusion  that  our 
Lord  is  speaking  of  Divorce :  and  His  judgment  is,  that 
whosoever  divorceth  his  wife,  except  for  one  cause — that  of 
fornication — and  marrieth  another,  committeth  adultery. 

But  here  an  important  question  presents  itself. 

Our  Lord  appears  here  to  specify  one  cause — and  one 
only — for  which  the  marriage  bond  may  be  dissolved,  and 
a  new  alliance  contracted.  And  in  like  manner,  He  had 
said  in  His  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  in  the  fifth  chapter  of 
St.  Matthew  (ver.  32),  "  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife, 
saving  for  the  cause  of  fornication*  causeth  her  to  commit 
adultery." 

1  As  the  Divines  of  Rome  assert,  e.  g.  Bellarmine  de  Matrimonio, 
Christus  non  loquitur  de  dimissione  quoad  vinculum,  sed  solum  quoad 
thorum,  quando  concedit  dimissionem  in  causa  fornicationis. 

2  Deut.xxiv.  1.  Hebrew,  Sepher  cerithuth,  libellum  excidii, quasi  coDjugii 
scissionis  ;  a  radice  carath,  discidit.    Gesen.  Lex.,  p.  417. 

3  See  the  form  in  Buxtorfii  Synagoga  Judaica,  cap.  xl.  "  Licita  esto 
nubere  cuivis  alii  viro,  et  hie  habe  tibi  libellum  expulsionum."  See  also 
Grotius  on  Matth.  v.  31,  and  Hammond  on  Divorce,  Works,  i.  p.  595,  ed. 
Lond.  1684. 

4  Our  Lord  uses  the  word  nopvela,  and  not  /ioi^eia,  because  iropvela 
"  comprehends  those  other  sins  of  incest,  &c."  which  /xot^f  la  did  not.  Cf. 
Hammond  on  Divorce,  p.  600. 


Meaning  of  Christ's  words  in  St.  Mark  and  Luke.  2 1 1 


The  expression  is  remarkable  :  "  Whosoever  putteth  away 
his  wife,  save  for  one  cause;  committeth  adultery." 

Our  Lord  affirms  that  a  man  is  guilty  of  adultery  if  he 
puts  away  his  wife  for  any  other  cause. 

But  He  does  not  affirm  that  a  man  does  well  if  he  puts 
away  his  wife  for  this  cause.  He  does  not  recommend  such 
a  divorce. 

All  that  can  be  said  in  this  case  is,  that  our  Lord  does 
not  forbid  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  in  that  one  predicament. 

And  neither  here,  nor  in  any  part  of  the  Gospel,  does 
our  Lord  permit  a  woman  to  put  away  her  husband,  and 
marry  another.  On  the  contrary,  He  says,  "  If  a  woman 
shall  put  away  her  husband,  and  be  married  to  another,  she 
committeth  adultery."  5 

This  is  worthy  of  attention. 

At  the  same  time  it  may  be  inferred,  that  a  man  is  not 
guilty  of  adultery,  if  he  puts  away  his  wife  in  that  special 
case  and  marries  another,  just  as  from  our  Lord's  saying, 
"  Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  perish,"  it  may  be  reasonably 
inferred  that  we  shall  not  perish,  if  we  do  repent. 

Such,  then,  is  our  Lord's  decree,  as  gathered  from  two 
places  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew. 

But  now  let  us  observe,  that  His  judgment  on  Marriage 
and  Divorce  is  recorded  by  two  other  Evangelists,  St.  Mark 
and  St.  Luke ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  in  neither  of  those 
two  Evangelists  is  any  exception  specified.  But  the  pro- 
hibition of  Divorce  appears  to  be  general  and  absolute.  In 
St.  Matthew,  as  we  have  seen,  our  Lord  says  twice,  "  Who- 
soever putteth  away  his  wife,  save  for  fornication,  and 
marrieth  another,  committeth  adultery,  or  causeth  her  to 
commit  adultery."  But,  in  St.  Mark0  and  St.  Luke7  He 
declares,  without  any  such  reservation,  that  "  Whosoever 
putteth  away  his  wife,  and  marrieth  another,  committeth 
adultery." 

Here,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  be  a  discrepancy. 
How  is  it  to  be  accounted  for  ? 

The  Church  of  Rome  hence  argues  that  the  exception 


5  Mark  x.  12.  6  Chap.  x.  11. 

7  Chap.  xvi.  18. 

p  2 


2  I  2 


Miscellanies. 


specified  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  was  afterwards  overruled 
and  superseded  by  our  Lord's  general  declaration  in  St.  Marl; 
and  St.  Luke ;  and  that  in  no  case  wliatever  can  the  marriage 
bond  be  dissolved.9 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  this,  the  Church  of  Rome  has 
often  given  dispensations,9  annulling  the  marriage  contract ; 1 
and  she  even  teaches,  that,  if  one  of  two  married  persons 
has  taken  a  monastic  vow,  the  marriage  tie  is  thereby 
severed ; "  and  she  commands  that  Priests  who  are  married 
should  be  divorced.3  And  yet,  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  in 
the  year  15G3,  she  went  so  far  as  to  pronounce  an  anathema 
on  all  who  say  that  she  is  in  error  when  she  affirms  that  the 
marriage  bond  is  indissoluble. 

But  what  then  shall  we  say  concerning  this  variety  in 
the  Evangelists  ?     Let  us  pray  to  God  for  grace,  and 

8  See  Concil.  Trid.  Sess.  xxiv.  Canon  7.  Catechism.  Trident.  Pars  ii. 
cap.  viii.  Qu.  20 :  Vinculum  matrimonii  divortio  disrumpi  non  potest. 

9  See  Sandys,  Europre  Speculum,  p.  41,  ed.  1673  ;  and  also  dispensing 
with  the  Divine  Law,  and  allowing  those  to  marry  who  are  prohibited 
thereby,  see  Reform.  Legum,  De  Gradibus  in  Matrim.  c.  3,  p.  47. 

'  And  she  anathematizes  those  who  deny  that  she  has  the  power  of 
devising  other  causes  than  God  has  ordained  in  His  Word  as  impediments 
to  Matrimony,  or  for  the  dissolution  of  it,  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxiv. 
Can.  3  :  Si  quis  dixerit,  non  posse  Ecclesiam  constituere,  ut  plures  gradus 
impediant  aut  dirimant  (quam  qui  in  Levitico  exprimuntur),  anathema 
sit.  And  again,  Can.  4  :  Si  quis  dixerit  Ecclesiam  non  potuisse  con- 
stituere impedimenta  matrimonium  dirimentia,  vel  in  iis  constituendis 
errasse,  anathema  sit. 

*  Can.  6  :  Si  quis  dixerit  matrimonium  ratum,  non  consummatuni, 
per  solemnem  religionis  professionem  alterius  conjugum  non  dirimi, 
anathema  sit :  i.  e.  if,  after  the  nuptial  knot  has  been  tied  in  facie  Ecelesia?, 
one  of  the  parties  goes  off  to  a  Monastery,  instead  of  going  home  with 
the  other  party,  the  tie  is  dissolved.  Or,  if  one  of  the  parties  has  made  a 
profession  of  religion,  before  the  marriage,  the  marriage  is  dissolved, 
or  rather,  the  knot  is  not  tied.  And  even  after  the  consummation 
of  marriage,  if  both  parties  go  into  a  Monaster}-,  the  Marriage  is 
dissolved  quoad  vinculum.  See  Lyndwood,  Provinc.  p.  128  :  and  see 
Bp.  Barlow,  Cases  of  Conscience,  p.  70,  on  the  Pope's  dispensing  Power 
in  dissolving  Marriage.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  how  such  decrees,  enforced 
with  an  anathema  by  the  Council  of  Trent,  are  consistent  with  her  doctrine 
that  Marriage  is  indissoluble. 

3  Contracta  matrimonia  ab  hujosmodi  personis  disjungi.  Cone.  Lat.  i. 
c.  21,  and  Lat.  ii.  Decret.  Dist.  27.  c.  8,  and  see  Dr.  Isaac  Barrow,  in 
Christian  Institutes,  iv.  240. 


Matthew  to  be  construed  with  Mark  and  Luke.   2  1 3 


examine  His  Word,  and  we  shall  find  that  this  obscurity 
will  become  to  us  a  source  of  light,  and  guide  us  on  the  path 
of  duty. 

J .  Let  us  observe,  that  the  question  in  St.  Matthew  is/ 
"  Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  for  every 
cause  ?  " 

No,  is  our  Lord's  reply,  not  for  every  cause,  as  is  your 
practice.  And  then  He  specifies  one  cause  in  which  it  is  not 
forbidden. 

But  in  St.  Mark  the  question  is  general.  Is  it  lawful 
for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  ? 6  which  is  met  by  a 
general  answei',  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  and 
marry  another,  committcth  adultery  against  her.6  And  so  in 
St.  Luke.7 

2.  On  the  one  hand  we  must  not  imagine,  that  anything 
spoken  by  our  Lord  to  His  disciples,  and  recorded  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  any  one  of  the  Gospels,  is  superfluous.  We 
must  not  suppose,  that  anything  spoken  by  Him  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  obsolete.  Nor  may  we  use  one 
Gospel  for  the  subversion  of  another.  Christ  foreknew  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  would  write  all  the  four  Gospels,  and  He 
spake  accordingly.  And  what  Christ  spake,  and  what  the 
Holy  Ghost,  Who  was  sent  by  Christ,  has  written  as  spoken 
by  Him,  must  be  received  by  us  as  it  was  spoken  by  Christ, 
and  as  it  is  written  in  the  Gospels  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
As  Ezekiel  says  (chap,  i.)  the  wings  of  the  four  Evangelical 
Cherubin  are  closely  interwoven,  and  we  must  not  en- 
deavour to  separate  them.  The  four  Gospels  make  one 
Gospel. 

3.  Therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  we  may  not  say  with 
the  Church  of  Rome,  that  the  exception  specified  by 
Christ,  and  recited  twice  by  St.  Matthew,  is  no  exception 
at  all. 

4.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  remember  that  these 
words,  "  Whosoever  putteth  away  his  wife,  except  for  fornica- 
tion," have  a  peculiar  character.  They  do  not  contain  a 
precept,  nor  even,  directly,  a  permission.    The  most  that  can 

4  Matt.  xix.  3.  6  Mark  x.  2. 

0  Mark  x.  11.  1  Chap.  xvi.  18. 


214 


Miscellanies. 


be  said  of  them,  is,  that  Divorce,  which  is  prohibited  in  all 
other  cases,  is  not  prohibited  in  that  one  case.  And  so  by 
implication  it  may  be  said  to  be  tolerated  in  that  case.  But 
let  us  remember  that  (as  a  wise  man  says)  "  God  approves 
much  more  than  He  commands,  and  disapproves  much  more 
than  He  forbids."8  In  no  case  does  God  approve  Divorce. 
And  may  we  not  say  that  in  all  cases  He  rather  regards  it 
with  disapproval?  For  Christ  has  expressly  declared  in 
general  terms,  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  in  the  chapter 
before  us,  WJiat  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put 
asunder.9  He  thus  intimates  His  gen  end  desire,  and  gives 
His  universal  counsel,  that  the  husband  should  not  proceed 
to  a  Divorce,  and  to  a  second  Marriage,  but  that  a  place 
should  be  left  to  an  erring  wife  for  repentance  and  re- 
conciliation. 

This  conclusion  is  also  confirmed  by  our  Lord's  teach- 
ing and  practice  on  other  occasions.  He  did  not  reject  the 
penitential  sorrow  of  the  woman  who  had  been  a  sinner, 
but  even  allowed  her  to  minister  to  His  own  blessed  body.1 
And  when  He  wrote  with  His  finger  on  the  ground,  and 
when  He  said  to  the  woman  taken  in  adidtery,  Go,  and  sin 
no  more,"  He  seemed  to  indicate  the  hardness  of  the  hearts 
on  which  He  had  written  His  law  concerning  Marriage, 
and  He  intimated  a  desire  that,  on  her  sincere  repentance, 
a  door  might  be  open  to  reconciliation,  and  that  the  bond 
of  marriage  might  not  be  broken  by  Divorce. 

Such  was  the  general  desire  of  Christ. 

5.  And  now  let  us  see,  how  beautifully  this  desire  is 
brought  out  by  the  fact  which  before  may  have  perplexed  us 
— that  the  exception  recited  by  St.  Matthew  is  not  mentioned 
in  the  two  other  Gospels  of  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke.  How 
instructive  is  this  omission  !  How  eloquent  is  this  silence ! 
You  pei-ceive  how  it  is  to  be  interpreted.  Not  that  Christ 
.has  revoked  the  permission,  or  rather  the  non-prohibition,  in 
St.  Matthew.  Not  that  He  unsays  in  one  Gospel  what  He 
has  said  in  another.  No.  He  is  "  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  the 
First  and  the  Last,"  3  the  eternal  "  Yea  and  Amen."  Heaven 


8  Hooker,  III.  viii.  5. 
'  Luke  vii.  37—39. 


9  Matt.  xix.  6.    Mark  x.  9. 
■  John  viii.  11.  3  Rev.  i.  8. 


Matthew  to  be  construed  with  Mark  and  Luke.  2 1 5 


and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  His  words  shall  never  pass 
awiii/.4  Nor,  again,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  had  forgotten 
what  Christ  said.  The  Holy  Ghost  was  sent  to  bring  to  the 
remembrance  of  Christ's  disciples  all  that  He  had  said  to 
them.'  No.  But  for  an  admirable  purpose,  which  ought  to 
be  borne  in  mind  by  us.  We  must  take  all  the  Gospels 
together.  Observe  what  instruction  may  be  derived  from 
their  variety  and  from  their  unity.  We  see  in  St.  Matthew 
that  a  man  may  not  divorce  his  wife,  and  marry  another, 
save  for  a  particular  sin.  He  is,  therefore,  not  forbidden  to 
divorce  her  for  that  sin.  If  we  had  St.  Matthew's  Gospel 
alone,  we  might  perhaps  imagine  that  Christ  approves  what 
He  does  not  forbid.  We  might  perhaps  have  said  that  He 
looks  with  complacency  on  Divorce  and  re-Marriage  in  one 
particular  case;  and  thus  we  should  see  Him  opposed  to  the 
God  of  the  Old  Testament,  Who  made  the  man  and  the 
woman  to  be  one  flesh,  and  hateth  putting  away.6  But  by 
God's  goodness,  we  have  two  other  Gospels,  those  of  St. 
Mark  and  St.  Luke.  They  supply  what  he  omits;  they 
supply,  even  by  omission — as  here.  In  them  it  is  said 
absolutely  that  "  whosoever  divorceth  his  wife,  and  marrieth 
another,  committeth  adultery."  And  why  ?  Not  because 
Christ  has  changed  His  mind,  and  forbids  now  what  He  had 
not  forbidden  before ;  but  in  order  to  teach  us  that  God  will 
be  better  pleased  with  us,  if  we  abstain  from  doing  that 
which  He  does  not  forbid  us  to  do.' 

This  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  the  Holy 

4  Luke  xxi.  33.  5  John  xiv.  26. 

c  Gen.  ii.  24.  Mai.  ii.  16.  After  all  that  has  been  written  on  this 
text,  this  appears  to  be  its  true  sense.  See  Drusius  and  W.  Lowth,  ad 
locum,  and  Grotius,  in  Matth.  v.  31. 

7  One  very  strong  reason  for  which  divorces  for  adultery  with  a  view 
to  second  marriages  are  inexpedient,  has  been  well  stated  by  S.  Augustine 
ad  Pollent.  de  Conjug.  Adulter,  ii.  18,  "  Ne  discant  viri  uxores  suas,  quas 
propter  alias  innumerabiles  causas  ferre  non  possunt,  mcechari  cogere, 
ut,  ab  eis  vinculo  conjugali  per  fornicationem,  sicut  putas,  soluto,  liceat 
eis  alteras  ducere."  In  corroboration  of  this  remark,  it  is  observable  that 
Lord  Eldon  stated  (May  16,  1800,  in  the  House  of  Lords),  "  That  nine 
out  of  every  ten  cases  of  adultery  that  came  into  the  courts  below,  or  that 
bar,  were  founded  in  the  most  infamous  collusion,"  i.e.  between  husband 
and  wife. 


i 


Miscellanies. 


Spirit  speaking  by  St.  Paul.8  Unto  the  married  I  command, 
yet  not  I,  but  the  Lord  (that  is,  in  the  Gospels,  as  we  have 
seen),  Let  not  the  wife  depart  (or  procure  a  Divorce)  from 
her  husband.  But  and  if  she  depart  (or  be  put  away  upon 
any  cause),  let  her  remain  unmarried,  or  be  reconciled  to  her 
husband.    And  let  not  the  husband  put  away  his  wife. 

Thus  the  exception  in  St.  Matthew,  and  the  omission  of  it 
in  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke,  when  considered  together,  convey 
to  us  Divine  instruction.  The  Evangelic  records  are  in 
perfect  harmony.  They  teach  us  by  their  voices— and  teach 
us  by  their  silence.  And  happy  would  it  be  for  the  world 
if  its  ear  were  duly  attentive  to  the  heavenly  music  of  their 
holy  wisdom.  How  peaceful  would  be  the  state  of  families  ! 
How  loving  would  be  the  intercourse  of  Husbands  and 
"Wives,  of  Parents  and  of  Children  !  And  this  harmony  of 
homes  would  diffuse  itself  in  ever- enlarging-  circles  in  Cities 
and  in  Nations,  and  throughout  the  World.  Then  those 
sins  would  be  unknown  which  now  bring  shame  and  anguish 
upon  families  ;  and  which,  if  they  are  not  checked,  but  grow 
more  strong,  and  extend  themselves  more  widely  among  us, 
will  spread  misery  and  ruin,  and  bring  down  God's  wrath 
upon  us  as  guilty  of  profaning  that  holy  Ordinance  which 
He  instituted  at  the  Creation,  and  which  has  been  adorned 
with  new  dignity  by  His  beloved  Son.  May  He  pour  His 
grace  into  our  hearts,  and  teach  us  to  see,  and  enable  us  to 
do  His  Will !  May  He  rescue  us  from  impending  dangers, 
and  lead  us  in  the  path  of  Truth  and  Love  ! 

Thus  we  may  mount  by  an  angelic  ladder  from  a  right 
understanding  of  earthly  Marriage  to  a  true  knowledge  of 
that  wedlock  which  is  heavenly,  spiritual,  and  eternal.  We 
may  ascend  from  the  type  to  the  antitype ;  from  the  first 
Adam  to  the  Second ;  from  Eve  in  the  garden  of  Eden  to 
the  Universal  Church  in  glory ;  from  the  Institution  of 
Marriage  in  Paradise  to  its  final  consummation  in  Heaven. 

Let  us  now  examine  whether  the  conclusion  at  which 
we  have  arrived  is  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  those 
whose  judgments  are  entitled  to  respectful  consideration. 


1  Cor.  vii.  10,  11. 


Patristic  authorities. 


2 1 7 


Our  assertion  is,  that  a  man  is  not  forbidden  to  put  away 
his  wife  and  to  contract  a  second  marriage,  if  his  wife  has 
been  guilty  of  adultery,  and  if  she  has  been  divorced  by 
judicial  sentence  for  that  sin ;  and  if  he  himself  has  not  been 
guilty  of  it. 

Some  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  especially  of  the 
Latin  Church,  and  particularly  St.  Augustine,  argued  from 
Mark  x.  11,  Luke  xvi.  18,  where  the  exception  (save  for 
fornication)  is  not  recited,  that  the  Marriage  boud  is  in  all 
cases  indissoluble.  But  in  reviewing  his  own  writings 
(Retract,  ii.  c.  57)  on  this  subject,  he  confessed  that  he  had 
not  satisfied  himself:  "non  me  pervenisse  ad  hujus  rei 
perfectionem  sentio." 

Others  of  the  Latin  Fathers  concluded  from  our  Lord's 
words  that  Marriage  is  dissoluble  in  that  case.  See 
Tertullian,  c.  Marcion.  iv.  34,  ad  Uxorem,  lib.  ii.  c.  3  :  Divor- 
tium  prohibet  (Christus)  nisi  stupri  causa.  Lactantius, 
Institut.  vi.  23,  and  Epitome,  c.  66,  asserts  that  the  adultery 
of  a  wife  justifies  a  divorce  a  vinculo. 

Among  the  Greek  Fathers,  St.  Basil  allows  a  divorce  for 
adultery  :  see  Epist.  188.  canon  9,  torn.  iii.  p.  274,  ed. 
Bened.  St.  Chrysostom  may  be  cited  as  taking  the  same 
view  (Horn.  xvii.  on  St.  Matthew).  So  St.  Epiphanius 
(Hasres.  lix.  vol.  i.  part  i.  p.  497),  on  which  passage  even 
Petavius,  the  learned  Jesuit,  allows,  vol.  ii.  p.  ii.  p.  255, 
that  the  innocent  party  was  then  allowed  to  marry  after 
Divorce;  he  quotes  the  10th  Canon  of  the  first  Council  of 
Aries  for  that  usage,  and  shows  that  though  the  Church 
advised  a  person,  who  had  put  away  his  wife  for  adultery, 
not  to  marry  another,  but  rather  to  endeavour  to  reclaim  and 
restore  his  fallen  partner,  she  did  not  forbid  him  to  do  so. 

Theodoret  (Bishop  of  Cyrus  a.d.  420)  says,  that  Christ  for- 
bids the  Dissolution  of  Marriage,  save  for  one  cause  (adul- 
tery), which  severs  the  bond,  jxiav  dfyopurjv  8ia\vaeco<;  eScoKe, 
ttjv  dXrjOws  Biaaircaaav  rrjv  ^evyXrjv  (Graec.  Affect. 
Curat,  ix.  vol.  iv.  p.  ii.  p.  944,  cd.  Hal.  1772.  See  also  ibid. 
Hasret.  Fab.  Compend.  lib.  v.  16,  p.  436,  and  v.  25,  p.  466). 

Even  our  own  St.  Boniface,  the  Apostle  of  Germany,  as 
late  as  the  seventh  century,  says,  in  a  remarkable  letter 


2 1 8  Mi  see  I lan  us. 


(Epist  87,  Bibl.  Patr.  Lugd.  xiii.  107),  that  Augustine  had 
by  no  means  satisfied  him  :  "  Nihil  plane  elucidationis  certe 
nostras  oinnino  teneritudini  captabile  profert."  And  it 
appears  from  his  letter,  that  even  in  the  Western  Church,  in 
the  seventh  century,  Marriage  was  not  forbidden,  after 
Divorce,  to  the  innocent  party. 

Euthymius  Zygabenus,  on  Matt.  v.  32,  says,  "  Our  Lord 
forbids  men  to  Divorce  their  wives  save  for  adultery ;  and 
He  does  not  allow  the  divorced  woman  to  marry  another 
man.  And  whosoever  divorces  his  wife,  except  for  adultery, 
is  the  cause  of  the  adultery  which  she  commits  by  marriage 
with  another  man,  who  is  guilty  of  adultery  in  marrying 
one  who  is  another's  wife." 

The  celebrated  Roman  Catholic  Jurist,  Thomassinus  (Eccl. 
Discipl.  iv.  p.  499,  De  Beneficiis,  Pt.  II.  lib.  i.  cap. 
Ixxviii.)  does  not  scruple  to  affirm  that  in  primitive  times 
Divorce  and  a  second  marriage  were  allowed  to  an  innocent 
man  for  the  wife's  adultery :  "  Non  modo  civili  et  Romano 
jure  licita  erant  liberaque  repudia,  sed  in  ipsa  Ecclesid  priori- 
bus  sceculis  aliquandiu  visum  est  quamplurimis  ab  innocuo 
marito  posse  repudiari  uxorem,  adulterii  convictam,  et  aliam 
duci." 

And  the  same  opinion  has  been  confirmed  with  a  large 
amount  of  ancient  testimony  by  another  learned  Roman 
Catholic  writer,  Launoy,  in  his  treatise  "  De  regia  in  matri- 
monium  potestate,"  (Opera,  vol.  i.  pars  2,  p.  625 ;  cp. 
vol.  iv.  pars  2,  p.  132,  ed.  Colon.  1731.) 

Bingham,  xvi.  11,  says,  "  The  Ecclesiastical  Laws  admitted 
of  divorces  only  in  case  of  adultery  and  malicious  desertion. 
In  the  case  of  adultery,  women  as  well  as  men  were  allowed 
to  divorce  themselves  from  the  offending  party,  as  appears 
from  the  case  related  by  Justin  Martyr  (Apol.  i.  p.  42),  and 
out  of  him  by  Eusebius,  iv.  17." 

The  Greek  Church  from  "  the  most  ancient  times " 
allowed  the  innocent  party  to  marry  :  see  Sarpi,  Concilio 
di  Trento,  ad  a.d.  1563,  p.  773. 

Bp.  Hall,  a.d.  1650,  Decade  iv.  "In  Cases  of  Conscience 
resolved,"  Case  3,  "  Whether  after  a  lawful  divorce  for 
adultery,  the  innocent  party  may  marry  again  ?  "  says, — 


jlmrlican  A  uthorities. 

o 


"  Shortly,  then,  I  doubt  not  but  I  may  (notwithstanding- 
great  authorities  to  the  contrary)  safely  resolve,  that  in  the 
case  of  Divorce  it  is  lawful  for  the  innocent  person  to  marry. 
But  for  that  I  find  the  Church  of  England  hitherto  some- 
what tender  in  the  point ;  and  this  practice,  where  it  rarely 
falls,  generally  held,  though  not  sinful,  yet  of  ill  report,  and 
obnoxious  to  various  censures ;  I  should  therefore  earnestly 
advise  and  exhort  those  whom  it  may  concern,  carefully  and 
effectually  to  apply  themselves  to  the  fore-mentioned 
remedies;  Reconciliation,  if  it  be  possible,  to  prevent  a 
Divorce ;  Holy  endeavours  of  a  continued  continence  (if  it 
may  be  obtained)  to  prevent  a  second  marriage  after 
Divorce :  but  if  these  prevail  not,  I  dare  not  lay  a  load 
upon  any  man's  conscience  which  God  hath  not  burdened; 
I  dare  not  ensnare  those  whom  God  will  have  free." 

Ibid.,  p.  850,  the  Bishop  says  wisely, — 

"  The  Pharisees'  question  (f  Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put 
away  his  wife  for  every  cause  ? ')  was  not  without  a  plain 
implication  of  liberty  to  marry  another :  which  our  Saviour 
well  knowing,  gives  a  full  answer  as  well  to  what  he  meant 
as  what  he  said ;  which  had  not  been  perfectly  satisfactory 
if  He  had  only  determined  that  one  part  concerning 
dimission,  and  not  the  other  concerning  marriage,  which 
clause  if  two  other  Evangelists  (St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke) 
express  not,  yet  it  must  be  fetched  necessarily  from  the 
third  (St.  Matthew),  since  it  is  a  sure  and  irrefragable  rule, 
that  all  four  Evangelists  make  up  one  perfect  Gospel." 

Dr.  Hammond,  "  Of  Divorces,"  vol.  i.  p.  595,  says, — 

"  The  occasion  of  this  doubt  (whether  a  man  may  divorce 
his  wife  for  adultery  and  marry  again)  is  the  variety  of  the 
words,  wherein  the  speech  of  Christ's  is  expressed  in  the 
Gospels ; 

"  For  as  Matt.  xix.  9,  the  words  are,  that,  '  Whosoever 
shall  put  away  his  wife,  save  for  fornication,  and  shall  marry 
another,  committeth  adultery ;  and  he  that  shall  marry  her 
that  is  put  away,  committeth  adultery  :'  which  are  favourable 
to  the  affirmative,  That  it  is  lawful  for  him  in  that  one 
excepted  case  to  marry  again:  so  Mark  x.  11  and  Luke 
xvi.  18,  the  exception  is  left  out,  and  the  words  are  the  same 


220 


Miscellanies. 


in  both,  absolutely  delivered,  '  Whosoever  putteth  away  his 
wife  and  marrieth  another  committeth  adultery  ; ' 

"  That  these  places,  that  in  Matthew  on  one  side,  and  in 
the  other  two  Evangelists,  at  least  in  St.  Mark,  on  the  other 
side,  are  a  report  of  the  same  passage  of  story,  and  of  the 
same  part  of  Christ's  speech,  appealing  from  the  Mosaical 
permission,  to  the  first  institution  of  marriage,  there  is  no 
ground  of  making  any  question.  And  therefore  it  follows, 
that  one  must  be  interpreted  by  the  other;  either  St.  Matthew 
by  the  other  two,  or  the  other  two  by  St.  Matthew ; 

"  That  Matthew  should  be  interpreted  by  the  other  two 
(the  more  explicit  and  large  by  the  shorter  and  less  explicit) 
seems  not  reasonable.  And  besides,  it  were  not  easily 
imaginable,  what  should  become  of  those  words  in  Matthew, 
both  xix.  9  and  v.  32  (except  for  fornication)  if  the  full 
sense  were  expressed  by  Mark  and  Luke  without  them :  for 
though  it  be  easy  to  conceive  such  words  to  be  meant,  when 
they  are  not  expressed,  yet  it  is  not  so  easy  to  conceive  them 
not  to  be  meant,  when  they  are  expressed. 

"  In  this  difficulty  thus  argued  on  both  sides,  the  Resolu- 
tion, I  suppose,  will  be  made  by  these  propositions, 

1 .  "  That  by  the  force  of  Christ's  words  in  all  the 
Evangelists,  he  that  marries  again  after  any  kind  of  Divorce, 
but  that  one  for  fornication,  doth  commit  an  unchristian  sin ; 
and  that  at  least  of  a  double  adultery,  one  in  taking  a  new 
wife  whilst  the  former  liveth  (which  is  formally  adulterous), 
the  other  in  deserting  (and  denying  the  duty  of  marriage  to) 
the  rejected  wife  of  his  youth,  which  may  be  casually 
adultery  in  her,  and  in  the  mean  while  is  an  injustice  joined 
with  wandering  lust ; 

2.  "  That  by  the  force  of  the  arguments  first  produced  for 
the  interpreting  Mark  and  Luke,  by  Matt.  xix.  9,  it  may  be 
probably  concluded,  That  in  that  one  case  of  divorce  for 
fornication,  the  marriage  of  the  innocent  party  shall  not  be 
adulterous. 

3.  "  That  although  this  be  granted,  yet  the  words  of 
Mark  and  Luke,  and  especially  the  words  of  St.  Paul, 
1  Cor.  vii.  39,  do  give  such  prejudices  against  marriages 
after  Divorce  indefinitely,  that  the  ancient  canons  of  the 


.  Inglican  Authorities. 


22  1 


Church  of  God,  and  the  constitutions  of  our  English  Refor- 
mation, have  thought  fit  not  to  permit  such  liberty  in  any 
kind." 

But  Hammond  speaks  more  clearly  in  his  "  Practical 
Catechism/'  book  ii.  sect.  vii. 

"  Is  no  kind  of  Divorce  now  lawful  under  Christ  ? 

"Yes,  clearly,  that  which  is  here  named  (Matt.  six.  3),  in 
case  of  fornication." 

Herbert  Thorndike,  "  On  the  Laws  of  the  Church,"  a.d. 
1659,  book  iii.  chap.  xiii.  sect.  29,  thus  speaks, — 

"It  is  not  possible  to  show,  that  ever  there  was  any 
opinion,  rule,  or  practice,  received  in  the  Church,  that  it  is 
lawful  to  divorce  but  in  case  of  adultery.  I  do  truly  conceive 
that  there  was  anciently  a  difference  of  opinion  and  practice 
in  the  Church,  whether  it  be  lawful  to  marry  again  upon 
putting  away  a  wife  for  adultery,  or  whether  the  bond  of 
marriage  remain  indissoluble,  when  the  parties  are  separated 
from  bed  and  board  for  adultery.  But  this  difference  argues 
consent  in  the  rest ;  that  is,  that  excepting  the  case  of 
adultery,  there  is  no  divorce  to  be  among  Christians." 

Bishop  Taylor's  opinion  (a.d.  1659)  is  that  Marriage  may 
be  dissolved  for  Adultery,  as  may  be  seen  in  his  Dudor 
Dubitantium,  chap.  v.  rule  viii. 

Bishop  Cosin  affirmed  that  by  the  Law  of  Christ  a  man 
might  put  away  his  wife  for  adultery,  and  marry  again. 

That  "  this  freedom  of  marrying  again  is  not  allowed  to 
the  adulteress."  See  his  argument  on  the  Dissolution  of 
Marriage,  Pari.  History,  iv.  p.  447.  State  Trials,  xiii.  1283, 
1332.  Works,  vol.  iv.  p.  498,  450,  ed.  Oxf.  1851.  (a.d. 
1669.) 

Bishop  Horsley  said,  in  his  Speech  in  the  House  of  Lords 
on  the  Adultery  Prevention  Bill,  1800, — 

"  This  inference  from  experience  is  founded  on  a  com- 
parison of  the  manners  of  the  women  in  this  country,  where 
the  practice  of  divorce  for  cause  of  Adultery  obtains,  with 
the  manners  of  married  women  in  foreign  countries  pro- 
fessing the  Roman  Catholic  Religion,  which  allows  not  of 
divorce  for  any  cause.  It  is  said  that  in  those  countries 
Adultery  is  far  more  frequent ;  and  this  greater  frequency 


222 


M i seel /antes. 


of  the  crime  is  ascribed  to  the  absolute  disuse  and  prohibi- 
tion of  divorce  in  those  countries. 

"  My  Lords,  I  am  very  ready  to  believe  the  fact,  and  very 
ready  to  admit  that  the  true  cause  is  assigned  for  it :  because 
I  can  easily  imagine,  that  women  will  be  less  strict,  where 
they  know,  that  be  their  conduct  ever  so  bad,  their  husbands 
cannot  cast  them  off,  but  are  still  under  the  necessity  of 
supporting  them  as  their  wives,  and  must  father  the 
offspring." 

On  the  whole,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  cause  of 
Holy  Matrimony  can  be  safely  grounded  and  successfully 
defended  on  the  plea  of  entire  Indissolubility.  Our  appeal 
must  be  to  the  original  text  of  Holt  Scripture.  And,  to 
say  the  least,  it  is  very  doubtful,  whether  Holy  Scripture, 
understood  in  its  plain  grammatical  sense,  will  bear  any  one 
out  in  urging  the  plea  of  Indissolubility. 

If  it  does  not,  let  not  Holy  Scripture  be  invoked  as  if  it 
did  sanction  it. 

If  the  cord  is  strained  too  tightly,  it  will  break  in  our 
hands.  If,  in  dealing  with  this  grave  and  solemn  question, 
we  endeavour  to  apply  Holy  Scripture  where  it  is  not  faii-ly 
applicable,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  apply  it  where  it  ought 
to  be  applied.  The  ground  of  Holy  Scripture  will  be  cut 
away  from  under  us,  and  then  where  shall  we  have  any  footing 
left? 

We  cannot  find  it  in  a  few  sentences  quoted  from  some 
Latin  Fathers.  And  in  arguing  this  question  in  England, 
we  shall  derive  no  benefit,  but  rather  the  contrary,  from 
finding  ourselves  in  the  company  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 


PART  II. 

ON  MAKRIAGE  WITH  A  DIVORCED  PERSON. 

We  now  arrive  at  the  second  question ;  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  our  Lord's  words,  "  Whosoever  marrieth  her  that  is 
put  away  from  her  husband  committeth  adultery  "  ? 


On  Marriage  with  a  divorced  person.  223 

In  order  to  answer  this  inquiry,  let  us  observe,  that  our 
Blessed  Saviour  repeats  this  sentence  three  times  in  the 
Gospels.  The  Holy  Spirit  in  reiterating  it  marks  its  solemn 
importance.  We  read  in  St.  Matthew  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  "  Whosoever  shall  marry  her  that  is  divorced 
committeth  adultery."  1  We  read  again  in  St.  Matthew, 
"  Whosoever  marrieth  her  which  is  put  away  doth  commit 
adultery."  2  We  read  again  in  St.  Luke,  "  Whosoever 
marrieth  her  that  is  put  away  from  her  husband  committeth 
adultery."  3 

1.  Now,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  word  in  the 
original  of  all  these  three  passages  for  divorced  or  put  awaxj, 
is  one  and  the  same,  aTro\tkv\xkvr).  This  word  signifies 
loosed  from  a  bond*  It  is  applied  in  the  Gospels  to  the 
woman  loosed  from  the  bonds  of  sickness.5  It  is  used  to 
signify  dissolution  by  death,  as  in  the  Song  of  Simeon/ 

1  Matt.  v.  32.  J  Matt.  xix.  9. 

3  Luke  xvi.  18. 

*  Absolute/.  Some  of  the  Latin  Fathers  would  have  been  saved  from 
much  of  the  perplexity  which  has  entangled  them  in  their  arguments  on 
this  great  question  of  Marriage  and  Divorce,  if  they  had  resorted  to  the 
Greek  original  in  this  text,  and  not  to  their  own  Latin  Translation 
here,  "  dimissam  a  viro,"  which  seems  to  fail  in  two  important  respects  : 
(1)  by  not  marking  the  absence  of  the  definite  article,  and,  (2)  by  rendering 
d7ro\e\vfj.evr)v  by  the  inadequate  and  much  weaker  word  dimissam. 

'AttoXvco  =  Absolvo,  whence  the  word  Absolution;  and  all  the  Latin 
Fathers  would  agree  that  it  would  be  theologically  unsound  to  deny  that 
Almighty  God  looses  the  penitent  sinner  from  the  bond  of  sin  (a  vinculo 
peccati)  by  the  Ministry  of  Absolution. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  subject  for  inquiry, 

What  would  have  been  the  reasonings  of  the  great  logician  and  theo- 
logian of  the  African  Church,  St.  Augustine,  on  Marriage  and  Divorce,  if 
he  had  argued  from  the  inspired  Greek ;  or  had  read  in  his  translation, 
"  Quicunque  solutam  (not  dimissam),  a  viro  duxerit,  mcechatur." 

St.  Augustine  (as  before  stated)  in  reviewing  his  own  writings  (lietrac- 
tationes,  ii.  c.  57),  indicates  that  he  had  not  quite  satisfied  himself  in  his 
argument  concerning  Marriage.  "  Scripsi,"  he  says,  "  duos  libros  de 
conjugiis  adulterinis  cupiens  solvere  difficillimam  quajstionem.  Quod 
utrum  enodatissime  fecerim  nescio  ;  imo  vero  nonme  pervenisse  ad  hujus 
rei  perfectionem  sentio." 

The  failing,  thus  candidly  confessed,  was  not  in  the  workman,  but  in 
the  instrument  with  which  he  worked — the  Latin  Vulgate,  instead  of  the 
Greek  Original. 

5  Luke  xiii.  12.  6  Luke  ii.  29. 


224 


Miscellanies. 


"  Lord,  now  lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace." 
It  is  used  of  liberation  from  prison,  as  -where  Pilate  is  said 
to  release  to  the  people  a  prisoner,  whom  they  would." 

2.  It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  in  all  the  three  places 
in  the  Gospels  before  recited,  where  the  word  rendered 
"  divorced,"  or  "  put  away,"  occurs,  this  word  uTroXeXv/MevT] 
stands  absolutely ;  that  is,  it  is  not  preceded  by  the  definite 
article  to  limit  it  to  a  particular  case.  It  therefore  means, 
universally  and  without  exception,  any  divorced  woman 
whatsoever.  As  has  been  remarked  by  a  learned  Bishop  of 
the  English  Church,  Bishop  Middleton,  in  Lis  treatise  on 
the  use  of  the  Article  in  the  Greek  Testament,  "  The  true 
meaning  of  the  word  is,  any  one  that  is  divorced ; "  and  he 
rightly  adds,  "  we  must  not  render  it,  her  that  is  divorced," 
that  is,  divorced  for  any  particular  cause,  whether  just  or 
unjust,  but  generally,  "  any  one  that  is  divorced,"  and 
he  well  adds,  "  the  principle  of  this  distinction  is  im- 
portant." 8 

3.  The  meaning  therefore  of  our  Lord  is,  Whosoever 
marrieth  any  woman  that  has  been  put  away  from  her 
husband  committeth  adultery. 

The  woman,  is  supposed  by  our  Lord  to  have  been  put 
away  by  her  husband. 

She  is  either  innocent,  or  not.  If  she  is  innocent,  then 
she  has  been  wrongfully  put  away  ;  he  may,  it  is  true,  have 
put  her  away  ;  and  in  the  times  when  our  Lord  was  speak- 
ing, wives  were  put  away  by  their  husbands  on  very  slight 
grounds.  But  a  wife,  who  has  been  wrongfully  put  away, 
cannot  make  herself  a  party  to  a  Divorce.  For  thus  she 
would  plead  guilty  to  a  crime  which,  by  her  Saviour's  law, 
is  the  only  cause  for  Divorce.  Her  husband,  indeed,  may 
treat  her  as  no  longer  his  wife ;  but  she  cannot  regard  him 
as  no  longer  her  husband. 

And  the  Laws  of  her  Country  will  protect  her  in  this 

'  Matt,  xxvii.  15,  17,  21 — 26.  Mark  xv.  6.  Luke  xxii.  68 ;  xxiii, 
16,  17.    John  xviii.  39.    Acts  iii.  13 ;  iv.  21.    Heb.  xiii.  23. 

8  So  likewise  Winer  in  his  Greek  Grammar  of  the  ~Ne\v  Testament 
Leipsic,  1855,  6th  edit.  p.  Ill,  rightly  observes  that  the  text  of  St.  Luke 
is  to  be  translated  "  he  who  marries  any  woman  that  has  been  divorced 
from  a  husband." 


On  marriage  with  a  divorced  woman. 


225 


vindication  of  herself.  They  will  defend  Womanhood.  They 
will  guard  Marriage.  They  will  not .  allow  a  man,  who  puts 
away  his  wife  wrongfully,  to  marry  again.  They  will  not 
tempt  the  woman  to  treat  herself  as  if  she  were  an  adulteress, 
by  regarding  her  as  divorced,  and  by  affording  her  facilities 
of  re-marriage.  For  Christ  Himself  has  said,  "  He  that 
marrieth  a  woman  that  hath  been  put  away  by  her  husband 
committeth  adultery." 

But,  suppose  the  other  alternative. 

Suppose  the  woman  to  be  guilty.  And  suppose  she  is  put 
away  for  adultery.  Is  she  not  justly  put  away  ?  Has  she  not 
ceased  to  be  a  wedded  ivife  ?  How  then,  in  that  case,  are  we 
to  understand  the  words  of  Christ  ?  "  He  that  marrieth  a 
woman  that  hath  been  put  away  committeth  adultery." 

Here  seems  to  be  a  paradox  ;  but  here  is  a  divine  truth ; 
and  we  need  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the  neglect  of  the 
divine  truth  contained  in  these  words  of  our  Lord  has  led 
to  much  misery  and  vice.  And  a  due  regard  for  it,  in 
Legislation  and  Administration  of  Justice,  would  do  much 
to  restore  Wedlock  to  its  divine  sanctity,  and  to  banish 
Adultery  from  the  world.  May  God  grant  that  in  any 
measures  which  may  now  be  adopted  in  our  own  Land,  the 
voice  of  this  Truth  may  be  heard. 

For  what  is  Adultery  ?  It  is  a  breach  of  the  Marriage- 
contract.  And  what  is  Marriage  ?  Our  Lord  replies, 
"They  twain  shall  be  one  flesh."  Therefore  union  with  an 
Adulteress  is  union  in  Adultery. 

And  what  let  us  ask,  is  the  cause  of  adultery  ?  Where  is 
its  spring  and  root  ?  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  treacherous 
arts  of  the  seducer,  and  in  a  guilty  passion  for  him.  She 
who  has  plighted  her  troth  to  another  is  tempted  by  Satan 
and  falls.  Now,  let  us  remember  that  by  the  Law  of  God 
under  the  Old  dispensation  a  woman  who  was  false  to  her 
husband  was  not  allowed  to  marry  her  seducer.  No,  she  was 
not  even  allowed  to  live.  The  command  of  Almighty  God, 
written  in  His  Holy  Word,  is — "  The  adulterer  and  adulteress 
shall  surely  be  put  to  death;  so  shalt  thou  put  away  evil 
from  Israel."  9 

9  Lev.  xx.  10.    Deut.  xxii.  22.    John  viii.  5. 
VOL.  III.  Q 


226 


Miscellanies. 


Christ  did  not  come  to  destroy  the  moral  law,  but  to 
fulfil  it.  He  came,  indeed,  to  mitigate  its  rigour,  but  not 
to  impair  its  virtue.  He  came  to  give  new  dignity  to  Mar- 
riage ;  but  the  Son  of  God,  the  Divine  Bridegroom  of  the 
Church,  did  not  come  into  the  world  to  give  new  privileges 
to  Adultery. 

Suppose  now,  that  th.Q  jtenalty  of  death  is  removed.  And 
in  our  own  age  and  country,  it  is  not  inflicted.  Adultery 
is  not  visited  with  death.  But  is  its  guilt  the  less  on  that 
account  ?  Surely  not.  And,  suppose  that  if  a  woman 
commits  this  sin,  she  thereby  acquires  permission  to  marry 
him  who  has  tempted  her  to  commit  it,  or  to  form  any  other 
new  alliance  that  she  may  desire.  Suppose  (as,  alas  !  is 
now  proposed)  that  such  a  marriage  as  this  sanctioned  by  the 
authoritative  voice  of  the  Legislature,  and  by  the  august 
forms  of  a  judicial  Tribunal,  constituted  for  that  purpose ; 
then  what  a  powerful  incentive  might  she  have  to  be  false  ! 
She  may  be  ill  at  ease  with  her  husband ;  they  may  be  ill- 
matched  in  age,  ill  assorted  in  temper,  in  pursuits,  in  tastes,  in 
dispositions;  the  husband  may  be  sullen  and  morose;  her 
home  maybe  cheerlessand  comfortless.  Instead  of  endeavour- 
ing, like  Abigail,  to  bear  her  burden  with  resignation ; 
and  instead  of  praying,  like  St.  Augustine's  mother  Monica,1 
with  fervent  sighs  and  tears  to  God,  for  the  divine  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  soften  her  husband's  heart,  and 
to  make  her  gracious  and  lovely  in  his  sight,  and  so  winning 
him  to  herself  and  to  Christ — she  may  be  tempted  to  look 
elsewhere;  estrangement  may  lead  to  aversion;  she  may 
imagine  that  she  will  be  more  happy — yes,  that  she  will  be 
even  more  holy — in  another  alliance.  The  Laws  of  her 
country,  and  its  venerable  Judicature,  will  seem  to  offer  it 
to  her  as  a  refuge  from  the  storm — a  wished-for  haven  of 
domestic  peace.    The  Enemy  of  her  soul,  in  the  person  of 

1  The  beautiful  picture  drawn  by  St.  Augustine's  band,  of  bis  mother's 
behaviour  to  her  husband  and  her  mother-in-law  (Confessions,  ix.  9),  may 
be  contemplated  by  all  with  benefit  and  delight ;  and  may  be  commended 
to  the  attention  of  any  who  may  desire  to  legalize  facilities  of  divorce. 
What  might  Monica  have  been, — what  might  her  husband  have  been, 
what  might  her  mother-in-law,  what  might  St.  Augustine  have  been, — 
if  such  facilities  for  divorce  had  existed  among  Christians  then  ? 


What  is  the  cause  of  Adultery  t 


227 


her  seducer,  will  be  at  her  ear  to  whisper  soft  hopes  into 
her  heart.  The  end  will  seem  to  justify  the  means.  An  act 
of  deadly  sin  will  become  to  her  like  a  work  of  spiritual 
emancipation.  Adulteiy  will  be  transformed  into  an  angel 
of  light."  It  will  promise  to  release  her  from  the  thraldom 
of  a  hated  union,  and  to  open  to  her  the  door  of  another 
home,  which  fascinates  her  with  fair  visions,  and  enchants 
her  with  delusive  dreams  of  peace,  happiness,  and  love. 

Is  there  not,  therefore,  Divine  wisdom  in  the  words,  "  He 
that  marrieth  her  that  has  been  put  away  committeth 
adultery." 

An  adulteress,  put  away  for  adultery,  is  in  a  penal  state. 
She  has  been  put  away  from  her  husband,  but  she  has  not 
been  put  away  to  a  new  husband :  she  has  been  cast  off  as 
a  blighted  branch,  but  not  to  be  grafted  on  a  new  tree,3 
Her  injured  husband  may  be  free  to  marry  again ;  but  she 
has  not  acquired  a  like  freedom  hy  injuring  him.  No, 
rather  she  is  like  those  branches  that  are  cast  into  the  fire 
and  burned.*  Our  blessed  Lord  might  and  did  cast  off  His 
first  spouse  the  Jewish  Church,  for  spiritual  fornication, 
and  He  espoused  to  Himself  another,  the  Gentile  Church. 
But  the  Jewish  Church  did  not  acquire  by  its  Divorce  from 
God  a  right  to  be  joined  to  another  Husband.  No,  she  was 
cast  out  till  she  returns  to  Christ  by  repentance ;  and  then 
indeed,  and  then  only,  is  there  hope,  that  God  will  have 
mercy  upon  her.  But  let  it  be  remembered  that  an 
adulteress,  by  God's  law,  was  to  be  put  to  death.  She  is  a 
tainted  person.  He  who  unites  himself  with  her,  he  who 
makes  himself  one  flesh  with  her,  is  partner  in  her  guilt. 
Union  with  an  adulteress  is  adultery, 

In  fact  he  who  marries  her,  may  be  said  to  be  a  cause  of 
her  adultery.  For  if  she  had  been  precluded  from  the 
prospect  of  a  second  marriage  purchaseable  by  Divorce  con- 
sequent on  Adultery,  she  would  probably  not  have  been  an 
adulteress.     She  would  not  have  fallen;   she  would  have 

2  2  Cor.  xi.  14. 

3  Hence  St.  Chrysostom  says,  "  An  Adulteress  is  no  man's  wife  "  (De 
libello  repudii,  iii.  p.  207,  ed.  Montfaucon). 

4  John  xv.  6. 

Q  2 


2  28 


Miscellanies. 


stood  firm ;  she  would  have  been  safe  from  the  temptation 
which  was  offered  her  by  the  view  of  that  second  marriage. 
If  there  were  no  second  marriages  purchaseable  by  adultery, 
adultery  would  scarcely  exist.  The  hope  of  the  second 
marriage  is  the  root  of  the  sin.  Well  therefore  does  the 
Divine  Lawgiver  eradicate  it  by  saying,  "  Whoso  marrieth 
a  divorced  woman  committeth  adultery/'' 

But  what,  it  may  now  be  said,  is  to  be  done  with  the 
guilty  party  ? 

To  which  question  we  may  first  say,  "  Why  should  she  be 
guilty  ?  Who  constrains  her  to  sin  ?  Everything  in  this 
world  and  the  next  world  deters  her  from  it.  And  if  the 
door  of  second  marriage  is  not  opened  to  her  by  the  hand 
of  men,  it  is  not  probable  that  she  will  sin."  5  When  men 
put  such  a  question  as  this,  "  What  shall  be  done  with  the 
guilty  party  ?  "  they  betray  and  condemn  themselves  ;  they 
show  that  they  have  a  very  low  and  unworthy  notion  of  the 
dignity,  sanctity,  and  beauty  of  womanhood,  and  of  those 
safeguards,  with  which  even  Nature  itself,  and  much  more 
the  protecting  hand  of  Grace  has  encompassed  her,  as  it 
were,  with  ministering  angels  waiting  on  her  steps,  and 
guiding  her  in  the  path  of  duty. 

But  if  this  question  must  needs  be  put,  and  must  needs  be 
answered,  we  must  say  again  that  God  has  declared  in  His 
law  that  adultery  is  punishable  with  death.  And  surely  the 
person,  who  takes  away  the  charm  of  life,  is  scarcely  less 

5  St.  Chrysostom,  in  his  xviith  Homily  on  St.  Matthew  observes, — 
"  Our  Lord  by  saying,  1  He  that  marrieth  a  woman  tbat  has  been  put 
away  committeth  adultery,'  makes  even  the  viciously  disposed  woman  to 
be  chaste,  by  altogether  blocking  up  against  her  all  ingress  to  any  other 
man  (npos  erepov  avftpa  iravra)s  aTrorfixifav  tlaohov  (11)777),  and  not  allowing 
her  to  give  occasions  of  petty  jealousies.  For  the  wife,  having  learnt  that 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  her  to  keep  the  husband  who  has  once  fallen 
to  her  lot,  and  that  in  case  of  her  being  cast  off  from  his  house,  she  has 
no  other  asylum,  even  against  her  will  learns  to  love  her  husband. 

"  He  also  makes  the  Law  easy  (to  the  husband)  in  another  way.  For 
He  leaves  him  one  mode  of  divorce  (d(peo-€a>i)  by  saying,  'except  for  the 
cause  of  fornication.'  For  if  He  had  commanded  the  man  to  retain  an 
adulteress,  adultery  would  have  again  been  the  result,  and  He  allows  Aim 
to  put  her  away  for  this  cause,  and  for  no  other." 


What  is  the  guilty  party  to  do  f  2  29 


guilty  than  one  who  takes  away  life  itself :  the  person  who 
destroys  the  peace  and  happiness  of  a  household  at  once,  and 
blights  and  withers  the  fair  name  and  tender  hopes  of 
innocent  children,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  guilty  of  a  less 
offence,  than  one  who  takes  away  life.  A  murderer  de- 
stroys one  life,  but  an  adulterer  or  adulteress  destroys  what 
is  best  worth  living  for,  and  what  is  most  precious  in  mauy 
lives. 

Accordingly  both  heathen  and  Christian  nations 6  have 
punished  adultery  by  death.  And  our  own  Reformers,  de- 
clared in  the  Reformatio  Legum  7  that  the  adulterer  and 
adulteress  should  be  condemned  to  perpetual  exile  or  im- 
prisonment; and  that  after  a  divorce  for  adultery  the 
guilty  party  should  not  be  allowed  to  contract  a  second 
Marriage. 

The  only  remedy  for  sin  is  Repentance ;  and  there  is  no 
sin  so  deadly  that  may  not  be  washed  away  by  the  tears  of 
Repentance  and  by  the  Blood  of  Christ.  "  The  Blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  from  all  sin.8  But  except  we  repent, 
we  shall  perish."  9  Let  no  one  therefore  imagine  that  the 
way  to  procure  pardon  and  peace  for  any  who  have  fallen, 
or  may  fall,  into  the  sin  of  adultery,  is  to  open  to  them  the 
door  of  a  second  Marriage.  No,  of  all  the  cruel  mercies 
that  were  ever  devised  by  the  Evil  One,  this  is  one  of  the 
worst.  It  rivets  the  chains  of  sin,  and  renders  repentance  a 
difficulty,  and  chains  two  persons  together  in  the  bonds  of 
iniquity. 

One  more  consideration.  Experience  confirms  too  strongly 
the  opinions  now  stated  concerning  the  meaning  of  our 
Lord's  words,  "  Whosoever  marrieth  her  that  has  been  put 
away  committeth  adultery." 

On  the  one  hand,  there  is  great  danger  in  the  position 
taken  up  by  the  Church  of  Rome  that  marriage  cannot  be 
dissolved  even  for  adultery,  which  is  encouraged  by  the 

6  See  Tacitus,  Germ.  xix.    Bingham,  xvi.  11. 

7  llefbrmatio  Legum  Ecclesiasticarum  (ed.  Oxon.  1851,  p.  50),  De 
Adulteriis  et  Divortiis. 

8  1  John  i.  7. 

9  Luke  xiii.  3,  5. 


Miscellanies. 


assurance  it  gives  to  women  that,  however  vicious  they  may 
be,  they  cannot  be  divorced  for  their  sin. 

Some  nations  of  Europe,  which  are  under  the  sway  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  are  now  a  warning  to  us  in  this  respect : 
and  doubtless  their  moral  condition  affords  us  a  solemn 
caution,  lest  by  avoiding  one  extreme  we  should  run  hastily 
into  the  other ;  and  lest  we  should  altogether  abolish  that 
which,  on  account  of  human  sin,  Christ  himself  allows,  in 
order,  to  show  our  zeal  for  the  maintenance  of  what  He  com- 
mands. But  this  being  borne  in  mind,  there  is  doubtless 
great  danger  to  be  feared  on  the  other  side. 

In  those  countries  where  the  true  meaning  of  our  Lord's 
words  "Whosoever  marrieth  a  divorced  woman  committeth 
adultery,"  is  disregarded,  and  where  a  second  marriage  is 
purchaseable  by  Divorce,  and  Divorce  is  purchaseable  by 
Adultery,  there  the  private  and  public  results  of  such  a 
permission  have  been  almost  too  disastrous  to  describe. 

A  speech  was  delivered  in  the  Legislative  Assembly  of 
Prussia,  in  the  year  1857,  by  a  high  legal  functionary 
of  that  kingdom,  who  has  presided  for  nearly  forty  years  in 
Matrimonial  Causes  in  that  realm,  and  states  publicly  the 
results  of  the  facilities  there  given  for  Divorce,  and  for 
enabling  the  guilty  party  to  contract  a  second  marriage.1 

"  The  number  of  Divorces,"  he  says,  "  every  year  amounts 
to  about  three  thousand  in  this  country,  or  ten  a  day ;  and 
if  you  allow  three  children  to  each  of  these  marriages,  this 
gives  from  nine  to  ten  thousand  children  annually  whose 
parents  are  divorced."  And  he  quotes  the  report  he  had 
received  from  a  Prussian  pastor,  even  of  a  rural  district, 
where  the  baneful  influence  of  the  law  has  been  less  felt 
than  in  the  great  towns,  and  who  says,  that  "  the  certainty 
of  being  able  to  obtain  a  Divorce  looses  the  marriage  tie 
among  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  and  helps  to  weaken 
the  sense  of  duty  to  practise  a  loving  forbearance  and  self- 
denial,  and  tends  by  degrees  to  bring  about  first  an  inward, 
and  then  an  actual,  breach  of  the  marriage  vow."  1  He 

1  Baron  Von  Gerlach.    Speech  in  the  Prussian  Chamber  of  Deputies 
on  the  Divorce  Bill,  Feb.  23,  1857.  p.  10. 
»  Page  12. 


Germany  and  England.  231 

states  also  that  the  consciences  of  the  Clergy  were  greatly- 
distressed,  as  they  well  might  be,  by  a  law  which  called 
upon  them  to  pronounce  the  marriage  benediction  on  persons 
divorced  for  the  breach  of  the  marriage  vow. 

These  facts  may  be  left  to  speak  for  themselves. 

Hitherto,  no  Tribunal  has  existed  in  England  for  Divorce 
and  re-marriage. 

Our  Country,  like  a  wise  parent,  says  to  us,  Take  heed 
how  you  enter  the  Marriage  State,  for  when  you  have  once 
entered  it,  there  is  no  exit  from  it,  but  by  death.  There- 
fore "  deliberandum  est  diu,  quod  statuendum  est  semel." 

And  the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  land  reminds  us  that 
Marriage  is  to  be  approached  with  godly  fear.  Her  language 
is  that  of  sternness — but  it  is  the  sternness  of  a  mother's 
love.  She  speaks  to  us  of  joy  in  Marriage,  but  of  joy 
derived  from  discharge  of  duty.  "  Marriage,"  she  says,  "  is 
honourable  among  all  men,  and  therefore  is  not  by  any  to 
be  entertained  nor  taken  in  hand  lightly,  but  reverently, 
discreetly,  advisedly,  soberly,  and  in  the  fear  of  God."  It 
is  the  most  solemn  act  that  you  can  perform  between  birth 
and  death.  And  this,  not  merely  for  your  own  sake,  be- 
cause it  will  be  to  you  either  a  great  blessing  or  a  great 
bane — and  your  own  welfare,  both  in  time  and  eternity,  may 
be  here  at  stake — but  also  because  the  welfare,  temporal  and 
eternal,  of  other  immortal  beings  is  here  involved — that  of 
your  future  wife,  to  be  made  one  with  yourself,  that  of  your 
children,  and  children's  children.  It  is  therefore  no  light 
thing  to  undertake  the  responsibilities  of  a  husband  and  a 
father.  And  if  you  enter  upon  them  rashly,  you  are  guilty 
of  cruelty  toward  man,  and  of  irreverence  toward  God. 
Hence  the  Church  of  Christ  in  her  Ritual,  and  our  Country 
in  her  Laws — though  now,  alas  !  with  a  faltering  voice  — 
speaks  to  us  in  the  words  of  solemn  warning. 

And  yet  Marriages  even  now  are  often  contracted  unad- 
visedly ;  and  we  see  the  wretched  consequences  of  such 
recklessness.  But  thanks  be  to  God,  some  Marriages,  which 
appeared  to  be  most  improvident  in  their  beginning,  may, 
and  often  do,  become  happy  in  their  continuance  and  in 
their  end,  under  the  influence  of  the  indissolubility  of  Mar- 


232 


Miscellanies. 


riage.  It  has  been  well  said?  that  "when  two  persons 
understand  that  they  must  live  together" — that  they  are 
inseparably  united  for  better  or  for  worse — "  they  learn  to 
soften  by  mutual  accommodation  the  yoke  which  they  know 
they  cannot  shake  off  ;  they  become  good  husbands  and  good 
wives  from  the  necessity  of  remaining  husbands  and  wives. 
For  Necessity  is  a  powerful  Master  in  teaching  the  duties  it 
imposes." 

And  may  we  not  add,  that  some  of  the  most  beautiful 
examples  of  human  patience,  tenderness,  and  love,  which 
the  angels  who  are  in  heaven  now  behold  in  this  lower 
world  of  ours,  are  seen  in  the  mutual  forbearance  and  self- 
sacrifice  of  husbands  and  wives  ?  They  bear  one  another's 
burdens,  and  help  one  another's  infirmities.  They  cherish 
one  another  in  sorrow,  they  comfort  one  another  in  sickness, 
and  soothe  one  another  in  trouble,  and  refresh  one  another 
in  weariness,  and  cheer  one  another  onward  on  the  way  to 
heaven. 

Here  is  a  holy  discipline  of  our  tempers  ;  here  is  an  exer- 
cise of  our  virtues ;  and  here  is  an  increase  of  our  graces, 
and  an  earnest  of  our  glory.  Here,  it  may  be,  is  present 
suffering;  but  here  also  is  a  bright  hope  of  future  joy. 
These  domestic  trials  on  earth  are  the  leaves  and  flowers  of 
which  our  heavenly  crown  is  to  be  woven. 

Yet,  after  all,  assuredly,  there  are  unhappy  marriages,  for 
which  no  such  remedies  are  found. 

True.  But  is  the  welfare  of  a  Community  to  be  sacrificed, 
because  some  persons  in  it  suffer  from  their  own  rashness,  and 
because  they  are  not  willing  to  apply  the  remedies  which  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  affords  to  alleviate  the  unhappiness  con- 
sequent on  their  own  imprudence  ?  Is  the  Law  of  God  to 
be  broken,  and  His  Wrath  to  be  incurred  by  a  Nation, 
because  some  individuals  in  it  may  have  despised  His  counsel, 
and  may  desire  to  abrogate  His  statutes  ? 

No  ;  this  is  not  the  way  to  promote  the  happiness  of  a 
Community,  nor  of  any  individuals  in  it. 

For,  suppose  that  opportunities  should  be  afforded  for 
Divorce,  and  for  the  formation  of  new  matrimonial  alliances 
3  By  Lord  Stowell,  in  the  case  oi'  Evans  v.  Evans. 


Probable  results  of  a  Divorce  Court.  233 

by  the  parties  separated  from  each  other — suppose  that  a 
new  Judicial  Tribunal  (as  now  proposed)  should  be  con- 
stituted for  this  purpose,  and  that  Divorce  were  made  easy ; 
suppose  that  Divorce  and  Re-marriage  were  (as  is  designed) 
to  be  made  purchaseable  by  Adultery,  then,  is  it  not  to  be 
feared,  that  many  more  persons,  than  is  now  the  case,  will 
be  made  miserable  by  reckless  marriages  ?  The  knot  being 
easy  to  be  untied,  less  care  will  be  taken  in  tying  it.  And 
ill-advised  marriages,  having  been  once  contracted,  will  not 
then  have  those  healing  means  of  recovery  which  are  now 
supplied  by  the  indissolubility  of  Marriage,  and  by  God's 
grace  acting  with  it ;  they  will  become  daily  more  irksome 
and  intolerable ;  and  the  sin  of  Adultery,  which  brings  down 
God's  judgments  on  families  and  Nations,  will  become 
common  and  familiar ;  temptations  to  it  will  even  be  offered 
to  wives  by  their  own  husbands,  in  order  that  the  one  may 
be  liberated  from  the  other,  and  that  both  may  be  free  to 
form  a  new  alliance ;  Adultery  will  be  welcomed  by  many 
as  a  release  from  a  hard  bondage,  and  be  almost  consecrated 
as  a  Virtue. 

From  such  calamities  as  these  may  God  deliver  us  ! 

Therefore,  by  the  mercies  of  Christ  Who  redeemed  you, 
and  for  the  love  of  the  souls  whom  He  hath  redeemed,  be 
not  persuaded  to  encourage  facilities  for  Divorce.  In  the 
eye  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  such  facilities  as  these  are 
facilities  for  Adultery.  They  are  facilities  for  shame  and 
misery  in  Time  and  Eternity.  Let  us  earnestly  supplicate 
our  Rulers — the  appointed  Guardians  under  God  of  our 
public  happiness  and  virtue — to  preserve  our  fellow-country- 
women, our  dear  sisters  in  Jesus  Christ,  from  the  danger- 
ous temptations  which  such  facilities  would  afford.  Let 
us  implore  them  rather,  to  renounce  the  invidious  privi- 
lege, and  abolish  the  evil  example,  of  granting  Divorces 
to  the  Rich.  Disturb  not  the  peace  of  Families,  sully  not 
the  honour,  offend  not  the  modesty  of  English  matrons,  by 
offering  them  temptations  to  disgrace.  Death  is  far  prefer- 
able to  such  ignominy  as  that.  In  the  case  supposed — the 
commission  of  the  sin  of  unfaithfulness — the  penitential 
sorrow  of  a  contrite  heart  is  the  only  remedy.    That,  we 


234 


Miscellanies. 


know,  may  prevail  through,  the  merits  of  Christ.  She  who 
has  been  tempted  to  fall  may  find  pardon  and  peace,  if  she 
comes  to  Him,  and  bathes  His  feet  with  her  tears,  and 
wipes  them  with  her  hair.  A  reconciliation  may  take  place ; 
the  Valley  of  Achormaj  become  a  Door  of  Hope  (Hos.  ii.  18), 
and  there  is  joy  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth. 

But  all  other  paths  lead  to  the  gate  of  death.  And  it  is 
not  mercy — no,  it  is  not  mercy, — though  it  may  assume  that 
sacred  name, — it  is  rather  heartless  cruelty — to  beguile  an 
unhappy  woman  from  the  only  true  way  of  recovery  and 
happiness, — the  way  of  Repentance ; — and  to  decoy  her  into 
a  false  way,  the  way  of  Re-marriage,  and  so  to  tempt  her  to 
everlasting  destruction. 

We  urge  this  plea,  therefore,  even  on  behalf  of  the  guilty. 
We  would  urge  a  similar  plea  in  behalf  of  innocent  children, 
the  offspring  of  those  who  may  be  tempted  to  sin  by  facilities 
of  divorce  and  re-marriage,  and  thus  reduce  those  children 
to  a  worse  state  than  that  of  orphans.  "  For  the  glory  of  a 
man  is  from  the  honour  of  his  father,  and  a  mother  in  dis- 
honour is  a  reproach  to  the  children  "  (Ecclus.  iii.  11). 

We  here  also  make  a  solemn  appeal  in  behalf  of  our 
Spiritual  Mother,  the  Church.  Shall  the  Clergy  be  required 
to  solemnize  such  second  marriages  as  these  ?  Shall  the 
Ministers  of  the  Bride  of  Christ  be  invited  to  pronounce  a 
blessiug  on  marriages  which  her  Lord  condemns  as  adul- 
terous ?  Heaven  forbid  !  If  the  Church  permits  this,  she 
herself  will  be  rejected  as  an  adulteress. 

Let  the  Clergy  remember  the  following  history;  it  is  very 
instructive.  About  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago  a  Marriage 
such  as  has  been  described  took  place  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  London.4  It  was  solemnized  by  a  clergyman,  then  young," 
who  became  afterwards  a  Prebendary  of  this  Church  of 
Westminster,  and  subsequently  Bishop  of  this  City,  and 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  at  length  laid  down  his  life 
with  courage  and  constancy  on  the  block,  Archbishop  Laud. 
He  was  persuaded  by  some  considerations,  especially  by 
importunate  solicitations  of  powerful  friends,  to  celebrate 

*  Dec.  26,  1605,  at  Wanstead. 

5  See  Heylin's  Life  of  Archbishop  Laud,  p.  59. 


Archbishop  Land. 


235 


the  marriage  of  a  guilty  divorced  party  with  another.  But 
soon  afterwards  his  conscience  sfriote  him ;  he  rued  with 
bitter  remorse  and  contrition  what  he  had  done ;  and  he  set 
apart  the  day  on  which  he  had  been  betrayed  into  this  sin 
(St.  Stephen's  day),  as  a  day  of  annual  self-abasement  and 
penitential  sorrow.  He  wrote  this  prayer  for  his  own  use  on 
that  sad  anniversary  :  "  Lord,  I  beseech  Thee  for  the  mercies 
of  Jesus  Christ,  enter  not  into  judgment  with  me  Thy 
servant ;  but  hear  His  Blood  imploring  Thy  mercies  for  me ; 
neither  let  this  Marriage  prove  a  Divorcing  of  my  soul  from 
Thy  grace  and  favour.  0  Lord,  how  grievous  is  the  re- 
membrance of  m'y  sin,  after  so  many  and  such  reiterated 
prayers  poured  forth  unto  Thee  from  a  sorrowful  and  afflicted 
spirit ;  be  merciful,  0  Lord,  unto  me,  hearken  to  the  prayers 
of  Thy  humble  and  dejected  servant,  and  raise  me  up  again, 
0  Lord,  that  I  may  not  die  in  this  my  sin,  but  that  I  may 
live  in  Thee  hereafter,  and  living  evermore  rejoice  in  Thee, 
through  the  merits  and  the  mercies  of  Jesus  Christ  my 
Lord  aud  Saviour.  Amen." 

Surely  these  touching  words  may  well  melt  the  heart  of 
the  hardest  among  us.  Surely  the  remembrance  of  them, 
and  of  the  deep  bitterness  of  soul  which  poured  them  forth, 
may  serve  as  a  warning  to  deter  us  of  the  Clergy  from 
sinning  against  our  own  consciences  by  solemnizing  such 
marriages  as  these.  Surely  also,  our  brethren  of  the  Laity, 
in  their  Christian  mercy  will  spare  us  this  sore  trial ;  they 
will  never  consent  to  reduce  twenty  thousand  men  who 
are  over  them  in  the  Lord,  and  have  a  sacred  commission 
from  Him,  and  are  under  His  care  and  protection  as  His 
Ministers,  to  the  painful  necessity  of  either  withholding  the 
obedience  which  they  must  ever  desire  most  earnestly  to 
pay  to  the  Laws  of  their  country,  or  of  sinning  against  their 
own  consciences,  and  violating  the  Law  of  God,  and  of 
incurring  the  wrath  of  Christ  by  solemnizing  such  Marriages 
as  He  condemned  as  adulterous  when  He  said,  "  Whosoever 
marrieth  her  that  is  put  away  from  her  husband  committeth 
adultery." 

Finally,  let  us  remember  that  a  great  and  solemn  question 
is  now  before  us.    Our  domestic  peace,  our  national  happi- 


236 


Miscellanies. 


ness,  depend  on  its  right  decision.  May  He,  of  His  mercy, 
guide  those  aright  in  whose  hands  the  decision  is  ! 

England  is  now  on  her  trial  in  the  sight  of  men,  angels, 
and  of  God.  The  present  crisis  is  fraught  with  results  of 
unspeakable  importance,  either  for  weal  or  woe,  to  her  and 
her  children  for  many  generations. 

If  we  reject  the  Law  of  Christ,  and  follow  our  own  devices, 
we  shall  plunge  ourselves  in  an  abyss  of  misery  and  shame. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if,  by  divine  grace,  we  are  true 
to  God  and  ourselves,  such  emergencies  as  these  may  be 
made  occasions  of  unspeakable  good.  Our  present  peril 
may  be  made  the  source  of  future  blessings.  It  calls  on  us 
all  to  awake,  it  calls  on  us  to  reflect  on  the  true  nature, 
dignity,  and  sanctity  of  Marriage,  and  on  the  heinousness  of 
sins  committed  against  it ;  and  on  the  wretched  condition  of 
those  men  and  nations  who  give  encouragements  to  Adultery 
by  granting  facilities  to  Divorce,  and  to  the  second  marriages 
of  adulterous  persons,  and  defy  the  divine  authority,  and 
incur  the  terrific  wrath  of  Him  Who  said,  "  Whosoever 
marrieth  a  divorced  woman  committeth  adultery."  It 
appeals  to  us  with  a  voice  from  heaven  to  join  with  heart 
and  hand  as  one  man,  and  to  pray  with  one  accord  to  God 
for  grace  and  power  to  maintain  the  blessings  we  possess  in 
the  safeguards  which  fence  the  Marriage  union  in  this  our 
favoured  land.  It  appeals  to  us  to  defend  that  Union  from 
all  sacrilegious  assaults,  and  from  all  unholy  contaminations; 
to  protect  that  sacred  Institution  which  was  ordained  by 
God  in  Paradise,  and  which  was  restored  and  repaired,  and 
invested  with  new  beauty  by  Jesus  Christ ;  and  to  win  a 
crown  of  immortal  glory  at  His  Hand,  when  He,  the  Divine 
Bridegroom,  will  appear  again  on  the  clouds  of  heaven, 
and  when  He  shall  cast  out  all  that  is  impure,  and  consign 
it  to  the  Lake  of  Fire,6  and  will  receive  the  faithful  Bride 
within  the  golden  portals  of  heaven,  and  will  welcome  the 
pure  in  heart  to  *'  sit  down  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,"  as 
guests  at  "  the  Marriage  Supper  of  the  Lamb."  7 


6  Eev.  xxi.  8. 


7  Luke  xiii.  29.  Rev.  xix.  7,  9. 


ON  MARRIAGE  WITH  A  DECEASED  WIFE'S  SISTER. 


The  following  is  the  substance  of  a  Sermon  preached  by  the  Author  in 
Westminster  Abbey  as  Canon  in  residence  in  March,  1859;  when  this 
subject  was  before  Parliament. 

In  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  the  book  Leviticus  1  Almighty 
God  speaks  as  follows  to  the  Israelites  concerning  the 
judgments  which  He  was  about  to  inflict  by  their  hands 
upon  the  nations  of  Canaan  :  "  Defile  not  ye  yourselves  in 
any  of  these  things  :  for  in  all  these  the  nations  are  defiled 
which  I  cast  out  before  you :  and  the  land  is  defiled  :  there- 
fore I  do  visit  the  iniquity  thereof  upon  it."  In  a  few  years 
afterwards  He  executed  His  purpose,  and  exterminated 
those  nations  by  Joshua  and  his  armies.  He  here  declares 
the  reason  of  that  extermination:  the  land  was  defiled. 
And  he  warns  the  Israelites,  that,  if  they  defile  themselves 
in  any  of  the  things  in  which  those  nations  were  defiled,  they 
would  be  visited  by  Him  with  the  same  chastisements  as  He 
was  about  to  inflict  by  them  on  the  Canaanites. 

It  will  be  remembered,  that  among  the  sins  there  specified 
by  God  as  the  cause  of  this  national  extirpation,  and  which 
are  recited  in  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Leviticus,  the  first 
place  is  assigned  to  unholy  marriages ;  that  is,  to  marriages 
contracted  within  the  degrees  of  consanguinity  and  of  affinity 
forbidden  by  His  law  :  and  that  for  those  sins  the  names  of 
those  Nations  were  blotted  out  from  under  heaven. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  is  this  relevant  to  us  ? 

The  Divine  law  concerning  Marriage  contained  in  this 
chapter  has  been  received  among  ourselves  for  many  genera- 
tions ;  it  has  been  regarded  by  our  forefathers,  even  from 

1  Lev.  xviii.  24,  25. 


238 


Miscellanies. 


primitive  times,  as  binding  upon  Christians;2  it  lias  been 
embodied  in  our  own  laws,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical.3 
But  it  is  now  proposed  to  abrogate  one  of  the  provisions 
which  our  ancestors  believed  to  be  contained  in  that  Divine 
code.  It  is  said  that  we  ought  to  rescind  the  prohibition 
which  restrains  a  man  from  contracting  marriage  with  the 
sister  of  his  wife,  after  his  wife's  death. 

Here,  then  is  a  grave  question  for  us  :  for  if  it  be  true, 
as  our  forefathers  believed  it  to  be,  that  the  Marriage  Code 
promulgated  by  God  in  this  chapter  is  binding  upon  us ; 
and  if  it  be  also  true,  as  our  ancestors  deemed  it  to  be,  that 
the  restriction  just  specified  is  comprehended  in  that  Code, 
then  we  have  reason  to  fear,  that  if  this  restriction  be  re- 
moved, other  infractions  of  the  same  Code  would  soon 
follow.4  to  the  confusion  of  domestic  relations  and  the 
destruction  of  domestic  peace.  And  even  if  this  were  not 
the  result,  yet  since  God  has  declared  that  they  who  wilfully 
break  one  of  His  laws  are  held  by  Him  to  be  guilty  of  the 
breach  of  all,5  and  it  is  expressly  said  in  this  chapter,  that 
"  Whosoever  shall  commit  any  of  these  abominations,  even 

2  See  the  statements  from  Church  Councils,  and  Ancient  Fathers,  col- 
lected by  two  learned  Lutherans,  Chemnitius,  Loci  Theologici  de  Matri- 
monio,  p.  212,  and  Gerhard,  Loci  Theologici  de  Conjugio,  vol.  vii.  p.  281. 

3  See  Bp.  Gibson,  Codex  Juris  Ecc.  Anglicani,  tit.  xxii.  cap.  i.  p.  412. 
Burn's  Eccl.  Law,  Art.  Marriage,  vol.  i.  pp.  723—734,  ed.  Phillimore. 
Canons  of  1603,  Can.  99,  where  it  is  said,  "  No  persons  shall  marry  within 
the  degrees  prohibited  by  the  Laws  of  God,  and  expressed  in  a  Table  set 
forth  by  authority  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  God,  1503  ;  and  all  marriages 
so  made  and  contracted  shall  be  adjudged  incestuous  and  unlawful,  and 
consequently  shall  be  dissolved  as  void  from  the  beginning,  and  the 
parties  so  married  shall  by  course  of  law  be  separated.  And  the  aforesaid 
Table  shall  be  in  every  church  publicly  set  up  and  fixed  at  the  charge  of 
the  parish."  Cp.  Hammond's  Works,  i.  p.  590,  ed.  Lond.  1864.  And 
the  valuable  work,  by  an  American  jurist,  Hugh  Davey  Evans,  on  the 
Christian  Law  of  Marriage,  chap.  xiv.  especially  §  25  (New  York,  1870), 
and  Lord  Hatherley's  Speech,  1850. 

*  Indeed,  one  of  the  Bills  (1849)  for  legalizing  a  marriage  with  a  wife's 
sister  contained  also  a  provision  for  marriage  with  a  niece  of  a  deceased 
wife  ;  and  it  has  been  avowed  by  some  who  support  the  measure  that  if 
the  marriage  of  a  husband  w\t\\  a  deceased  wife's  sister  be  legalized,  the 
marriage  of  a  wife  with  a  deceased  husband's  brother  cannot  be  any  longer 
prohibited. 

5  James  ii.  10.  1j  . 


Why  Leviticus,  chap,  xviii.  concerns  us. 


239 


the  souls  that  commit  them  shall  be  cut  off  from  among 
their  people  ; " 6  we  may  therefore  expect  that  the  same 
Divine  judgments  which  were  inflicted  on  the  nations  of 
Canaan  may  overtake  us ;  or  rather,  that  we  may  be  chastised 
with  even  greater  severity  than  they  were,  because  we  have 
not  been  deterred  from  their  sins  by  their  punishment,  which 
is  set  before  us  by  God  as  our  warning  in  His  Holy  Word. 
Let  us,  therefore,  address  ourselves  to  the  consideration  of 
this  subject  with  that  prayer  for  illumination,  and  with  that 
calm  earnestness  which  its  importance  demands. 

1 .  The  first  question  which  arises  is  : — 

Does  the  Divine  Code  in  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Leviticus 
concern  11s  ? 

To  this  we  may  reply,  that  it  is  binding  upon  us,  and  upon 
all  men  in  every  age. 

For,  observe,  it  is  said  that  of  ail  the  sins  forbidden  in  this 
code,  the  nations  of  Canaan  were  guilty.7 

Now,  it  is  clearly  stated  in  Holy  Scripture,  that  "  Where 
no  law  is,  there  is  no  transgression," 8  and,  that  "  sin  is  not 
imputed  where  there  is  no  law,"  8  for  the  essence  of  sin  is, 
that  it  is  the  transgression  of  law.1 

Since,  then,  the  Canaanites  were  guilty  of  the  sins  recited 
in  this  chapter,  they  must  have  been  under  the  law  by  which 
those  sins  are  forbidden. 

Therefore  that  law  is  not  a  part  of  the  civil  Law  given  to 
the  Jews,  as  such,  but  it  appertains  to  the  common  Law 
binding  on  all  nations.  It  is  antecedent  to  the  Levitical 
Law.  Indeed,  as  the  Jews  themselves  allow,  it  is  at  least  as 
old  as  the  flood ; 2  and  therefore  the  eighteenth  chapter  of 
Leviticus  does  not  contain  any  enactment  of  a  neiv  code, 
obligatory  on  the  Jews  only,  but  it  is  declaratory  of  laws 
already  in  force  and  binding  on  all  nations. 

It  therefore  concerns  us ;  and  if  we  violate  its  statutes,  we 

*  Lev.  xviii.  29.  ~>  Lev.  xviii.  24—28.  8  Rom.  iv.  15. 

9  Rom.  v.  13.  1  1  John  iii.  4. 

:  See  the  Jewish  Authorities  cited  by  Hooker,  IV.  xi.  3,  where  he  says 
that  "  Marriage  within  a  number  of  degrees  was  not  only  by  the  law  of 
Moses,  but  also  by  the  law  of  the  sons  of  Noah,  unlawful ;  and  also 
Hammond,  i.  pp.  587,  588,  and  the  authorities  in  Poli  Synopsis  on 
Lev.  xviii.  16  ;  and  Selden,  de  Jure  Naturali,  v.  11. 


240 


Miscellanies. 


may  expect  to  suffer  the  penalties  which  are  denounced  by 
God  on  those  who  transgress  it. 
2.  The  next  question  is — 

Were  our  forefathers  right  when  they  said  that  marriage 
with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  forbidden  by  that  law  ?  Is 
any  such  prohibition  contained  in  that  Code  or  not  ? 

Here,  again,  I  reply  in  the  affirmative. 

But  where,  you  may  ask,  is  the  prohibition  ?  You  look 
through  the  chapter  in  question,  and  you  do  not  find  any 
express  recital  of  such  a  restriction. 

What  shall  we  say  here  ? 

The  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God ;  and  man's  Reason  is  the 
gift  of  God.  The  true  sense  of  the  Bible  is  the  Bible ;  and 
the  Bible  is  given  to  us  as  reasonable  men,  and  we  are 
bound  to  use  our  reason  in  ascertaining  its  true  sense.  And 
whatever  can  be  shown  by  sound  reason  to  be  contained  in 
the  Bible,  is  the  true  sense  of  the  Bible ;  it  is  an  integral 
part  of  the  Bible  ;  and  they  who  reject  what  can  be  thus 
proved  by  logical  inference  to  be  the  true  sense  of  the  Bible, 
do  in  fact  take  away  from  the  Bible,  and  they  incur  the 
punishment  which  God  has  declared  that  He  will  inflict  on 
those  who  mutilate  His  Word.3 

To  ask  for  an  express  text  for  everything  we  do,  or  for- 
bear to  do,  is  to  tempt  God,  and  to  disparage  His  Word  as 
imperfect,  and  to  despise  the  gift  of  Beason  which  we  have 
from  Him. 

But  if  we  prize  our  Bibles  and  our  Reason,  we  shall 
follow  the  Apostle's  precept  "  to  compare  spiritual  things 
with  spiritual,"  4  and  by  a  careful  collation  of  the  several 
parts  of  Scripture  endeavour  to  elicit  the  true  meaning  of  the 
whole.5 

Accordingly  we  find  that  our  blessed  Lord  Himself  charges 
those  with  ignorance  of  Scripture  who  did  not  act  thus.6 
When  He  reasoned  with  the  Sadducees  on  the  doctrine  of 

3  Deut.  iv.  2 ;  xii.  32.  4  1  Cor.  ii.  13. 

5  Hence,  therefore,  it  is  well  said  in  the  Articles  of  the  Church  of 
England  (Art.  vi.),  that  nothing  is  to  be  required  of  any  man  as  neces- 
sary to  salvation  which  is  not  "  read  therein,  nor  may  he  proved  thereby.'" 

6  Matt.  xxii.  29.    Mark  xii.  24. 


How  Scripture  ought  to  be  interpreted.  241 


the  Resurrection,  He  did  not  quote  to  them  any  text  where 
that  doctrine  is  recited  in  express  words,  but  He  referred 
them  to  a  passage  from  which  that  doctrine  was  to  be  de- 
duced, by  a  sound  logical  inference  :  "As  touching  the  dead, 
that  they  rise,  have  ye  not  read  in  the  book  of  Moses, 
how  in  the  bush  God  spake  unto  him,  I  am  the  God  of 
Abraham  ?  .  .  .  He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living ;  ye  therefore  do  greatly  err." 7 

So  again,  in  confuting  the  Pharisees  on  the  subject  of 
Divorce  for  every  cause,  He  did  not  appeal  to  any  text  where 
divorce  is  expressly  forbidden,  but  He  charged  them  with 
ignorance  and  error,  because  they  had  failed  to  infer  God's 
will  on  that  subject  from  His  own  Word  :  "  Have  ye  not 
read,  that  He  which  made  them  at  the  beginning  made  them 
male  and  female  ?  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father 
and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife  :  and  they  twain 
shall  be  one  flesh.  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together, 
let  not  man  put  asunder."  8 

Besides,  if  no  restrictions  are  to  be  admitted  which  are 
deduced  by  sound  logical  inference,  but  only  such  as  are 
recited  in  express  terms,  then  a  man  might  even  marry  his 
own  daughter ;  for  there  is  no  express  prohibition  of  such  a 
marriage  in  the  Divine  Code. 

3.  Here,  therefore,  the  question  occurs,  Can  it  be  proved 
by  sound  logical  inference  that  the  prohibition  of  marriage 
with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  contained  in  the  Law  of  God  ? 

Yes,  surely  it  can.    For  consider  this.    We  read  in  Holy 
Scripture  that  woman  was  made  out  of  man,  and  that  man 
said,  "  This  is  now  bone  of  my  bones,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh 
and  it  is  added,  "  Therefore  shall  a  man  cleave  unto  his  wife, 
and  they  shall  he  one  flesh."  9 

Remember  also  that  this  declaration  has  been  adopted 
and  re-enforced  by  Christ  Himself  in  the  Gospel. 

Therefore,  your  wife's  sister  is  your  sister ;  and  as  a  man 

7  Mark  xii.  26,  27.  8  Matt.  xix.  4—6. 

9  Gen.  ii.  22— 24;  cp.  Matt.  xix.  5;  Mark  x.  7;  Eph.  v.  31.  The 
expression  is  still  stronger  in  the  original  Hebrew  (Je  basar  cchad),  and 
in  the  Gospels  in  the  accusative  case,  els  crdpKa  filav ;  that  is,  joined 
together  into  one  flesh :  "  so  then  they  are  no  more  twain,  but  one  flesh." 
Mark  x.  8. 

VOL.  III.  R 


242 


Miscellanies. 


may  not  marry  his  own  sister  after  his  wife's  death,  so 
neither  may  be  marry  his  wife's  sister.1 

4.  Indeed,  this  is  evident  from  the  Law  of  God. 

In  the  chapter  now  before  us,  a  man  is  forbidden  to  marry 
the  mother  of  his  deceased  wife,  and  he  is  forbidden  to 
marry  the  daughter  of  his  wife,  or  the  daughter  of  her  son, 
or  of  her  daughter.  And  why  ?  Because  it  is  declared,  they 
are  near  of  kin  to  her,  or,  as  the  original  expresses  it,  they 
are  part  of  her  flesh."  And  such  marriages  are  described  as 
wickedness.  For  they  who  are  joined  to  him  in  such  mar- 
riages are  part  of  the  flesh  of  her  who  had  been  made  one 
flesh  with  him  by  marriage.  And  if  they  are  part  of  her 
flesh,  surely  her  sister  also  is  part  of  her  flesh.  Indeed, 
this  point  has  been  settled  in  this  same  chapter,  where  it  is 
expressly  affirmed  that  a  man  may  not  marry  the  sister  of 
his  father.  And  why  ?  Because  (it  is  added)  the  sister  is 
the  near  kinswoman  of  his  father  : 3  or,  as  the  original  ex- 
presses it,  is  part  of  the  flesh  of  his  father.4  Hence,  it  is 
clear  that  a  man  may  not  marry  his  wife's  sister,  because  his 
wife's  sister  is  part  of  the  flesh  of  her  who,  as  God  declares 
in  both  Testaments,  was  made  by  marriage  to  be  one  flesh 
with  him.5    It  is  remarkable  that  the  connexion  especially 

'  This  was  the  argument  of  the  Caneans  or  Scripturists,  among  the 
Jews,  who  censured  such  a  marriage  as  unlawful.  See  Selden,  Uxor 
Hebr.  i.  3  ;  Opera,  vol.  iii.  pp.  539 — 542,  ed.  Lond.  1726. 

s  Shaarah,  Lev.  xviii.  17 ;  cp.  xx.  14,  where  Drusius  and  Munster 
observe  that  sheer  has  nearly  the  same  meaning  as  basar,  flesh,  and  so 
Gesenius,  Lexicon,  p.  799.  See  also  v.  6,  where  it  is  expressly  said,  that 
none  shall  approach  near  to  any  that  are  part  of  his  flesh  ;  rendered  in 
our  version  near  of  kin. 

3  Lev.  xviii.  12. 

4  Sheer. 

5  This  argument  has  been  well  stated  by  the  Rev.  W.  Abner  Brown,  in 
his  tract  on  the  subject,  p.  9,  2nd  edit. :  "  Let  us  examine  the  Scripture 
rule.  It  forbids  a  man  to  marry  '  any  that  is  near  of  kin  to  him;  '  and 
mentions  in  the  following  order  thirteen  instances  of  persons  directly  or 
indirectly  near  of  kin,  viz.  his  mother,  his  stepmother  or  father's  wife. 
his  sister,  his  half-sister,  his  own  grand-daughter,  his  father's  sister,  his 
mother's  sister,  his  aunt  or  father  s  brother's  wife,  his  own  daughter-in- 
law  or  son's  wife,  his  sister-in-laio  or  brother's  wife,  his  wife's  mother, 
his  wife's  daughter,  his  wife's  grand-daughter.  Six  of  these  women  are 
blood  relations,  Seven  (printed  in  italics)  are  persons  made  relations  b}- 


Can  a  man  marry  his  deceased  ivifes  sister  f  243 


condemned  as  incestuous  in  the  New  Testament  is  not  one 
of  consanguinity,  but  of  affinity.6 

5.  Remember  also  this.  A  man  may  not  marry  bis 
brother's  widow  ;  or  in  other  words,  a  woman  is  forbidden 
to  marry  her  deceased  husband's  brother.  This  prohibition  is 
repeated  twice  in  Scripture.7  And  the  reason  is,  that  the 
wife  of  the  brother  is  one  flesh  with  him.8 

Now,  surely,  thy  wife's  sister  is  as  near  to  thee  as  thy 
brother  is  to  thy  wife ;  and  since  thy  wife  is  forbidden  to 
marry  thy  brother  after  thy  death,  so  art  thou  forbidden 
to  marry  her  sister  after  her  death.  God  has  forbidden  the 
former  of  these  marriages  as  execrable,  and  can  He  reason- 
ably be  supposed  to  approve  the  latter  ?  Surely  this 
cannot  be.9 

marriage  only.  The  whole  follow  the  words  '  near  of  kin '  without  break 
or  distinction  ;  except  that  after  the  charge  not  to  marry  his  wife's 
relations  there  is  added,  '  for  they  are  her  near  kinswomen  ;  it  is  wicked- 
ness.' This  last  word  is  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew  word  used  for  the 
vilest  kind  of  lewdness,  in  Judges  xx.  6 ;  Ezek.  xvi.  43,  and  xxii.  11. 

6  1  Cor.  v.  1. 

7  Lev.  xviii.  16;  xx.  21. 

8  "  Fratris  nuditas  est,  id  est  una  carocum  fratre." — Hammond,  see 
in  Poli  Synops.  ad  loc.  Lev.  xviii.  16. 

9  This  is  thus  stated  by  Bishop  Jewel,  in  a  letter  in  Strype's  Parker, 
Appendix,  book  ii.  No.  xix. : — 

"  You  must  remember  that  certain  degrees  are  there  left  out  untouched 
(in  Leviticus  xviii.),  within  which  nevertheless  it  was  never  thought 
lawful  for  men  to  marry.  For  example,  there  is  nothing  provided  there 
by  express  words  but  that  a  man  may  marry  his  own  grandmother,  or 
his  grandfather's  second  wife,  or  the  wife  of  his  unkle  by  his  mother's 
side ;  no,  nor  is  there  any  express  prohibition  in  al  this  chapter  but  that 
a  man  may  mary  his  own  daughter ;  yet  will  no  man  say,  that  any  of 
these  degrees  may  join  together  in  lawful  mariage.  Wherefore  we  must 
needs  think,  that  God  in  that  chapter  hath  especially  and  namely  forbidden 
certain  degrees  ;  not  as  leaving  al  mariage  lawful  which  He  had  not  there 
expresly  forbidden,  but  that  thereby,  as  by  infallible  precedents,  we  might 
be  able  to  rule  the  rest.  As,  when  God  saith,  No  man  shall  mary  his 
mother,  is  contained  both  the  grandmother  and  the  grandfather's  wife, 
and  that  such  mariage  is  forbidden.  Thus  you  see,  God  himself  would 
have  us  to  expound  one  degree  by  another.  So  likewise  in  this  case, 
albeit  I  be  not  forbidden  by  plain  words  to  mary  my  wives  sister,  yet  am 
I  forbidden  so  to  do  by  other  words  which  by  exposition  are  plain  enough. 
For,  when  God  commands  me  I  shal  not  mary  my  brother's  wife,  it 
follows  directly  by  the  same,  that  he  forbids  me  to  mary  my  wife's  sister. 

E  2 


244 


Miscellanies. 


6.  But  here  it  has  been  alleged  by  some,  that  since  in  a 
certain  case  Almighty  God  commanded  that  a  'wife  should 
be  joined  in  marriage  to  a  deceased  husband's  brother, 
namely,  in  case  that  her  husband  had  died  without  issue 
and  since  God  cannot  be  supposed  to  command  anything 
immoral,  therefore  the  marriage  of  a  man  with  his  deceased 
wife's  sister  cannot  be  immoral. 

Is  then  God  inconsistent  with  Himself?  In  His  Holy 
Word  He  has  forbidden  a  woman  to  be  joined  in  marriage 
to  her  husband's  brother.  But  in  a  special  case,  for  a 
special  reason,  applicable  ouly  to  the  Jews,  God  was  pleased 
to  dispense  with  His  own  law;  and  in  the  plenitude  of  His 
Divine  omnipotence,  and  for  the  purpose,  it  may  be,  of 
showing  His  Divine  Sovereignty,  to  change  the  prohibition 
into  a  command.2 

But  because  God,  "Who  is  the  Supreme  Lord  of  all,  and 
Who  is  the  Fountain  of  Law,  was  pleased  in  a  particular 
case  to  dispense  with  His  own  law,  shall  we — His  creatures, 
who  are  subject  to  that  law — dare  to  suppose  that  we  can 
seat  ourselves  on  God's  throne,  and  dispense  with  that  law  ? 
No,  surely;  for,  as  St.  James  speaks,  God  is  the  one  Law- 
giver, "  Who  is  able  to  save  and  to  destroy."  3  God  cannot 
command  anything  that  is  sinful.  For  sin  is  the  transgression 
of  Eis  law ; 4  and  whatever  He  commands  is  right.  But  it  is 
no  less  absurd  and  presumptuous  to  say,  that  we  may 
dispense  with  God's  law  concerning  marriage,  because  He 

For  between  one  man  and  two  sisters,  and  one  woman  and  two  brothers, 
is  like  analogy  or  proportion,  which  is  rny  judgment  in  this  case.  And 
other  such  like  ought  to  be  taken  for  a  rule." 

So  Hammond,  i.  p.  583  :  "  And  just  thus  it  is  in  this  matter:  this  of 
the  wife's  sister  which  is  not  named,  being  directly  the  same  degree  of 
propinquity,  as  that  of  the  brother's  wife,  which  He  named  and  prohibited. 
And  that  will  appear  by  either  of  the  two  ways  of  measuring  the  pro- 
pinquity, the  wife's  sister  being  as  near  to  the  husband  as  the  husband's 
brother  is  to  the  wife,  and  the  sister's  husband  as  near  to  the  other  sister 
as  the  brother's  wife  can  be  to  the  brother.  And  accordingly,  the  Scrip- 
turarian  Jews,  as  well  as  the  rest,  do  here  resolve,  That  a  man  is  forbidden 
to  marry  two  which  are  kin  to  one  another,  and  specifie  in  a  woman  and 
her  sister." 

1  Deut.  xxv.  5.  Mark  xii.  20—22.  ;  Lev.  xx.  21. 

3  James  iv.  12.  1  1  John  iii.  4 


Marriage  with  a  deceased  wifes  sister.  245 

in  one  case  dispensed  with  it,  than  it  would  be  to  affirm  that 
murder  is  not  immoral,  because  God,  Who  is  the  sole 
Arbiter  of  life  and  death,  commanded  Abraham  to  slay  his 
son  Isaac ; 5  or  that  we  may  innocently  commit  theft, 
because  God,  Who  is  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth,  commanded 
the  Israelites  to  spoil  the  Canaanites,  and  to  take  their  cities 
into  possession.6 

7.  Again,  it  has  been  affirmed  by  some,  that  in  the  chapter 
now  before  us  God  has  given  a  man  permission  to  marry  his 
wife's  sister  after  her  death. 

This  assertion  requires  careful  consideration. 

The  permission  in  question,  it  is  alleged,  may  be  deduced 
by  logical  inference  from  the  eighteenth  verse  of  this 
eighteenth  chapter  of  Leviticus. 

There  we  read  as  follows  :  "  Neither  shalt  thou  take 
a  wife  to  her  sister  to  vex  her  .  .  .  beside  the  other  in  her 
lifetime/' 

Here,  then,  the  question  is  asked,  When  God  forbids  a 
man  to  marry  his  wife's  sister  during  his  wife's  life,  may  it 
not  be  fairly  inferred,  that  He  does  not  forbid  him  to  marry 
her  after  his  wife's  death  ? 

To  this  we  would  answer,  No ;  such  an  inference  is  not 
sound. 

For,  first,  suppose,  for  argument's  sake,  that  the  English 
words  just  recited  are  a  correct  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
original,  then  we  affirm,  that  in  all  interpretations  of  law 
the  general  drift  of  the  whole  must  be  considered,  and  be 
used  as  the  clue  for  its  exposition ;  and  that  in  right  con- 
structions of  law,  that  which  is  doubtful  is  to  be  elucidated 
by  means  of  what  is  clear,  and  not  that  which  is  clear  be 
obscured  by  that  which  is  doubtful.  And  we  assert  that 
such  an  inference  as  has  just  been  recited  is  at  variance  with 
the  whole  context  of  the  law,  by  which  a  man  is  expressly 
forbidden  to  contract  marriage  with  the  kindred  of  his  wife, 
as  has  been  already  shown,  in  which  a  sister  is  specially 
mentioned  as  near  of  kin.' 


5  Gen.  xxii.  2.  6  Exod.  iii.  22  ;  xii.  36. 

'  And  so  Bp.  Patrick  and  a  large  body  of  commentators,  who  rightly 


246 


Miscellanies. 


The  fact  is,  as  lias  been  well  observed  by  one  of  our  wisest 
divines,  that  it  is  altogether  inconsistent  with  a  right  inter- 
pretation of  the  Holy  Scriptures  to  imagine  that  "  a  thing 
denied  with  special  circumstances  doth  import  an  opposite 
affirmation  when  that  circumstance  is  expired."  8 

For  example :  when  Samuel  had  uttered  a  stern  prophecy 
against  Saul,  we  read  that  he  came  no  more  to  see  him  until 
the  day  of  his  death.9  But  are  we  therefore  to  infer  from 
this  text,  that  Samuel  came  to  see  Saul  after  his  death. 
Again,  we  read  that  Michal,  the  daughter  of  Saul,  had  no 
child  until  the  day  of  her  death.1  Was  she  then  a  mother  in 
the  grave  ?  Christ  promised  to  be  with  the  Apostles  until 
'  the  end  of  the  world.2  Will  He  begin  to  be  absent  from 
them  then  ?  No  ;  He  will  then  come  in  His  glorified  body, 
and  they  will  he  for  ever  with  the  Lord.3 

If,  then,  our  English  translation  represents  rightly  here 
the  words  of  the  original,  the  meaning  of  this  verse  is,  that 
though  a  man's  wife  may  become  aged,  infirm,  or  ungracious, 
and  though  her  sister  may  be  more  fair  and  attractive  in 
person  and  disposition,  yet  he  may  not  espouse  the  sister  in 
addition  to  the  wife,  however  long  the  ivife  may  live.  And 
this  prohibition  may  have  been  occasioned  by  the  case  of 
the  patriarch  Jacob,  who,  under  extenuating  circumstances,1 
married  Rachel,  the  sister  of  Leah  his  wife,  in  her  lifetime ; 
and  whose  example,  by  reason  of  his  patriarchal  dignity, 
might  perhaps  be  construed  into  a  dangerous  precedent.5 

But  this  prohibition  is  not  to  be  drawn  into  a  permission 
to  marry  a  wife's  sister  after  her  death — a  marriage  which 
had  been  excluded  by  previous  enactments  in  the  same  code, 
forbidding  marriages  with  a  wife's  kindred,  and  specifying  a 
sister  as  near  of  kin. 

8.  But,  after  all,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  this  verse, 

affirm  that  on  s-ich  grounds  as  these  marriage  with  a  wife's  sister  is  un- 
lawful. 

8  Hooker,  V.  xlv.  2,  with  reference  to  the  memorable  text,  Matt.  i.  25 

9  1  Sam.  xv.  35.  1  2  Sam.  vi.  23. 

i  Matt,  xxviii.  20.  Cp.  Bp.  Pearson  on  the  Creed,  Art.  iii.  p.  174, 
"  Born  of  the  Virgin  Mary." 

3  1  Thess.  v.  17.  4  Gen.  xxix.  25—28. 

5  So  Gerhard,  de  Conjugio,  §  350  ;  and  others. 


What  is  the  meaning  of  Levit.  xviii.  18  ?  247 


the  eighteenth,  which  has  been  pleaded  in  favour  of  marriage 
with  a  deceased  wife's  sister,  has  any  connexion  with  the 
question  at  issue. 

It  is  very  probable  that  the  true  rendering  of  this  verse  is 
that  which  our  translators  have  placed  in  the  margin  of  our 
Bibles ;  and  that  the  real  sense  of  the  passage  is,  "  Neither 
shalt  thou  take  one  wife  to  another/'  to  vex  her,  beside  the 
other,  in  her  lifetime. 

In  a  word,  this  verse  has,  probably,  nothing  to  do  with 
the  marriage  of  a  wife's  sister,  but  is  a  prohibition  against 
the  marriage  of  more  wives  than  one  at  a  time. 

Why,  it  may  be  asked,  do  we  affirm  this  ?  First,  we  reply, 
look  at  the  scope  of  the  code.  It  forbids  marriage  with  a 
wife's  kindred  after  her  death.  It  specifies  a  sister  as  near 
of  kin.  Was  it  necessary  to  forbid  marriage  with  a  wife's 
sister  ?    Surely  not. 

Next  remark,  that  the  reason  given  against  a  man's  taking 
a  second  wife  in  his  wife's  lifetime  is,  lest  by  so  doing 
he  vex  her.  But  this  is  no  special  argument  against  marry- 
ing her  sister  :  she  would  be  as  much  vexed,  whether  that 
second  wife  were  any  other  woman,  as  she  would  be  if  she 
were  her  sister. 

Next  observe  the  place  of  this  verse.  It  stands  at  the 
end  of  the  prohibitions  concerning  affinity,  and  at  the  head 
of  a  series  of  general  prohibitions,  which  have  no  reference 
to  affinity.  It  may  therefore  belong  to  the  latter,  and  not 
to  the  former. 

And  next,  look  at  the  words  of  the  original.  The  Hebrew 
phrase  is  ishah  el  achothah  ;  and  this  is  rightly  rendered  in 
our  margins  6  one  wife  to  another ;  or  one  woman  to  another  ; 
not  one  wife  to  her  sister. 

For,  if  you  look  through  the  books  of  Moses,  you  will 
find  this  Hebrew  phrase  used  to  describe  the  coupling  of 
one  thing  with  another.7 

5  It  stands  there  in  the  original  edition  of  our  Authorized  Version, 
a. P.  1611. 

7  See  Pagnini  Lex.  Hebr.  p.  83,  where  he  says  that  it  is  carefully  to  be 
noted,  as  Rabbi  David  observes,  that  in  Hebrew  anything  is  called  ish 
(man),  or  ishah  (woman),  as  the  faces  of  the  Cherubim  in  Exod.  xxv.  20, 


248 


Miscellanies. 


Thus  in  the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  Exodus  it  occurs  four 
times,8  and  in  none  of  these  does  it  signify  a  wife  to  her 
sister,  but  simply  a  thing  to  its  fellow.  And  so  it  is  used  in 
other  places  of  Holy  Writ.  And  in  like  manner  the  Hebrew 
phrase  which  signifies  literally  "  a  man  to  his  brother"  does 
not  mean,  "  a  man  to  his  brother  by  blood,"  but  simply, 
"one  man  to  his  fellow,"  or  "one  man  to  another  man;" 
and  so  it  is  commonly  rendered  in  our  Bibles.9 

Therefore  we  may  conclude,  that  this  phrase  in  question 
is  well  translated  in  our  margin,  "  one  wife  to  another," 
and  accordingly  it  has  been  understood  in  this  sense  by 
many  of  the  best  Hebrew  scholars,   both   Jewish 1  and 

where  the  original  literally  means  "  one  man  to  his  brother."  Cp.  Exod. 
xxxvii,  9.  And  so  the  curtains  in  Exod.  xxvi.  3  are  said  to  he  coupled 
"  one  woman  to  her  sister,"  that  is,  one  curtain  to  another.  See  also 
Gesenius'  Hebrew  Lex.,  pp.  xxvii,  xxx,  ed.  London,  1847.  Cp.  Gen.  xiii. 
11;  xxvi.  31.  Exod.  xvi.  15  ;  xxxii.  27 — 29.  Isa.iii.  5;  xix.  2.  Ezek.  i. 
19;  iii.  13;  xvi.  45,  48,  49.   Joel  ii.  8. 

8  Verses  3,  5,  6,  17. 

9  The  following  important  statement  on  this  point  is  from  the  Rev. 
Charles  Forster's  remarks  on  this  question  ;  London,  1850,  p.  32 :  "  This 
phrase,  '  a  woman  to  her  sister,'  together  with  the  similar  formula  in  the 
masculine,  viz.  '  a  man  to  his  brother,'  occur,  with  slight  variations  of  the 
intervening  preposition  or  conjunction,  two-and-forty  times  in  the 
Hebrew  Bible,  and  never  once  does  it  designate  the  blood  relationship  of 
two  sisters  or  two  brothers,  but  always  and  invariably  means  (when  used 
of  persons)  simply  two  men  together,  or  two  women  together ;  and  when 
used  of  things  (for  it  is  used  of  things  as  well  as  of  persons)  it  means  two 
masculine  or  feminine  things  of  the  same  kind.  And  it  is  actually  thus 
translated  in  our  Bible  in  thirty-two  out  of  the  forty-one  other  places 
where  it  occurs  ;  and  in  the  other  nine  places  brother  obviously  does  not 
refer  to  consanguinity,  but  to  proximity.  If,  therefore,  this  expression 
designates  in  Lev.  xviii.  18  the  blood  relationship  of  two  sisters,  I  can 
only  say  that  this  is  the  solitary  instance  in  the  whole  Bible  where  it 
has  such  a  meaning. 

"  Out  of  two-and-forty  times,  then,  in  which  this  Hebrew  idiom  occurs, 
it  is  agreed  on  all  hands  that  in  forty-one  instances  it  has  no  reference  to 
the  blood  relationship  of  two  brothers  or  two  sisters,  but  simply  means 
two  persons  or  things  of  the  same  kind."  See  also  the  analysis  of  the 
passages  in  Dwight's  "  Hebrew  Wife,"  pp.  84 — 91. 

1  E.  g.  Junius,  Tremellius,  and  Hammond,  i.  p.  584.  See  also  Drusius 
in  Critici  Sacri  in  loc.  i.  pt.  ii.  p.  291 ;  and  so  Calovius,  Ainsworth,  Beza, 
and  Willet.  And  see  also  the  Annotations  of  the  Westminster  Divines, 
1651 ;  and  so  Scbleusner,  Lexic.  V.  T.  ddeXcprj.    See  also  Archdeacon 


The  meaning  of  Levit.  xviii.  18.  249 

Christian.2  Thus  everything  in  the  context  becomes  clear 
and  consistent.  You  may  not  take  any  other  woman, 
whether  sister  or  no,  to  wife,  so  long  as  your  wife  lives. 

9.  Here  however  it  has  been  asked  by  some,  if  this  is  a 
prohibition  against  polygamy,  how  is  it  that  many  of  the 
ancient  Hebrews  were  polygamists  ?  How  is  it  that 
Solomon,  and  even  David,  had  more  wives  than  one  ? 
Would  this  have  been  the  case  if  there  had  been  a  law  of 
God  against  plurality  of  wives  ? 

The  answer  is,  the  practice  of  man  is  not  a  sure  inter- 
preter of  the  law  of  God.  "  Let  God  be  true,  and  every 
man  a  liar."3  You  say,  some  of  the  kings  were  polygamists, 
and  therefore  God  had  not  forbidden  polygamy.  But  no ; 
what  says  God's  law  ?  The  king  shall  not  multiply  wives  to 
himself.*  Is  not  this  a  prohibition  of  polygamy  ?  And 
certainly  the  words  of  the  Old  Testament  which  were  quoted 
by  our  Lord  as  forbidding  divorce,  are  as  clearly  prohibitory 
of  polygamy.  A  man  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife,  and  they 
twain  shall  be  one  flesh.5 

10.  And  here  we  have  a  ready  answer  to  another 
objection. 

It  is  said  by  some,  that  the  Jews  to  whom  the  Sacred 
Oracles  were  given,6  approve  the  marriage  of  a  man  with 
his  deceased  wife's  sister,  and  that  we  Christians  ought  to 
follow  them  in  their  interpretation  of  those  Oracles. 

But  this  inference  is  erroneous. 

For,  first,  those  Jews  who  allow  these  marriages  do  not 
allow  them  after  the  divorce  of  the  wife,  as  long  as  she  is 
living,  and  thus  witness  to  their  illegality. 

Next,  the  disparaging  terms  in  which  these  other  Jewish 
rabbis  speak  of  the  Sacred  Oracles  in  comparison  with  their 
own  traditions,  will  deter  every  pious  reader  of  Scripture 

Hessey's  excellent  pamphlet  on  this  subject;  third  edition,  1855,  pp. 
12,  19. 

-  By  the  Karaite  Jews,  generally,  i.  e.  by  those  Jews  who  rightly  prefer 
the  letter  of  God's  Word  to  the  traditions  of  men  and  the  Rabbinical 
glosses  of  the  Talmud. 

3  Rom.  iii.  4.  4  Deut.  xvii.  17. 

5  Matt.  xix.  5. 

"  The  Karaite  Jews,    See  Selden,  Uxor  Hebraica,  i.  3 — 6. 


250 


Miscellanies. 


from  placing  confidence  in  their  expositions.  They  say 7 
that  the  written  text  of  Scripture,  as  contrasted  with  their 
traditions,  is  only  as  water  compared  with  wine,  and  that 
the  words  of  the  scribes  are  lovelier  than  those  of  the  law, 
and  that  the  precepts  of  the  rabbis  are  weightier  than  those 
of  the  prophets;  and  their  predecessors  were  condemned 
by  Christ  as  making  the  law  of  God  of  none  effect  by  their 
traditions.8  Shall  we  then  follow  such  leaders  as  these  ? 
Does  not  St.  Paul  say  that  the  veil  is  on  the  hearts  of 
the  Jews  in  reading  the  Old  Testament,9  and  that  they 
know  not  the  voices  of  the  prophets  which  are  read  every 
Sabbath  Day  ? 1 

If  the  Jewish  expositors  of  Scripture  are  to  be  followed, 
then  we  must  cease  to  be  followers  of  Christ ;  then  Christ 
is  not  come ;  then  we  shall  be  followers  of  those  who  say 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  justly  crucified. 

But  let  us  not  prefer  the  broken  cisterns  of  the  Talmud 
to  the  living  waters  of  Holy  Scripture.  If  we  do,  then  we 
may  come  with  the  Jewish  doctors  to  Christ,  and  ask,  Is  it 
lawful  to  put  away  a  wife  for  every  cause  ? "  and  then  we 
may  also  be  denounced  by  the  Divine  Teacher  as  an 
adulterous  and  sinful  generation.3  We,  too,  may  be  addressed 
as  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  were  by  the  Apostle,  a  little 
before  its  destruction,  Ye  adulterers  and  adulter  esses, *  when 
they  also,  as  the  Canaanites  of  old,  were  about  to  be  exter- 
minated for  their  sins. 

11.  Let  us  rather  turn  to  the  Christian  Sion,  the  spiritual 
Jerusalem,  the  Church  of  the  Living  God,  to  which  Christ 
has  promised  His  presence  and  the  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.5  How,  let  us  ask,  has  the  Church  of  Christ  inter- 
preted the  Law  of  God  in  this  matter  ?  If  marriage  with 
a  wife's  sister  was  lawful — if  our  Christian  forefathers  had 
deemed  it  to  be  lawful — many  such  marriages  would  have 


"  See  numerous  Rabbinical  authorities  to  this  effect  in  Prideaux,  Con- 
nexion ;  part  i.  chap.  v.  on  B.C.  447. 

8  Mark  vii.  15.  9  2  Cor.  iii.  14. 

1  Acts  xiii.  27.  2  Matt.  xix.  3. 

3  Matt.  xii.  20 ;  xvi.  4.  *  James  iv.  4. 

5  Matt.  xx.    John  xiv.  16. 


Testimony  of  Christian  Antiquity.         25  1 


taken  place.  We  are  told  that  many  such  marriages  now 
take  place,  and  therefore,  it  is  pleaded,  they  ought  to  be 
made  lawful.  But  look  back  to  the  past,  to  the  time  of 
Christ  and  of  the  Apostles.  Not  a  single  testimony  in  favour 
of  such  marriages  can  be  cited  from  any  Christian  writer  of 
any  note,  for  fourteen  centuries  after  Christ.  All  Christendom 
abhorred  them.  Remember  the  words  of  the  holy  Bishop 
of  Caesarea,6  St.  Basil,  deservedly  called  the  Great,  who, 
writing  in  the  fourth  century,  speaks  not  only  in  his  own 
name,  but  bears  testimony  to  the  judgment  of  his  predeces- 
sors on  this  subject,  and  says,  "  Our  custom  in  this  matter 
has  the  force  of  law,  because  the  statutes  we  observe  have 
been  handed  down  to  us  by  holy  men;  and  our  judgment  is 
this,  that  if  a  man  has  fallen  into  the  sin  of  marrying  two 
sisters,  we  do  not  regard  such  an  union  as  marriage,  nor  do 
we  receive  the  parties  to  communion  with  the  Church  until 
they  are  separated/' 

Such  is  the  testimony  of  Christian  Antiquity;  and  such  is 
the  judgment  of  the  Eastern  Church  to  this  day.' 

12.  If  now  it  be  said  that  the  Church  of  Rome  allows 
such  marriages,  and  that  we  ought  to  do  the  same,  first,  we 
deny  the  fact ;  for  she  does  not  solemnize  them  without  a 
dispensation,  and  thus  is  still  a  witness  to  their  illegality. 
But  having,  alas !  been  tempted  by  the  lust  of  lucre  and  of 
power,  to  swerve  from  the  rule  of  her  fathers,8  and  to  grant 
such  dispensations,  which  she  did  first  in  the  sixteenth 
century,9  her  eyes  are  blinded,  and  she  cannot  see,  what 
formerly  she  saw  clearly,  that  these  marriages  are  forbidden 
by  God's  Word,  lest  haply  she  be  forced  to  allow  that  she 

6  "  Basilium  totus  veneratur  Antiquitatis  chorus ;  plaudit  tota  erudi- 
torum  cavea."    Cave,  Hist.  Lat.  i.  p.  219. 

'  See  Rev.  W.  Palmer's  Statement,  pp.  58—69,  London,  1849. 

*  It  is  remarkable  that  the  very  ancient  Vatican  Manuscript  of  the 
Septuagint  (lately  published  by  Cardinal  Mai),  contains  a  curse  against 
those  who  lie  with  their  wife's  sister,  in  Deut.  xxvii.  23.  This  was  pro- 
bably at  first  only  a  marginal  note,  and  has  passed  from  the  margin  into 
the  text ;  but  it  is  an  important  witness  of  tbe  opinion  of  the  early  age  in 
which  that  MS.  was  written. 

9  The  first  dispensation  of  this  kind  was  given  a.d.  1500,  by  Pope 
Alexander  VI.  (Borgia),  to  Emmanuel,  King  of  Portugal.  In  the  next 
generation  the  King's  family  was  extinct. 


252 


Miscellanies. 


has  been  guilty  of  the  heinous  sin  of  dispensing  with  God's 
Law. 

And  shall  we  follow  her  iu  this  ? 

If  it  should  be  urged  that  some  Protestant  communions 
do  not  censure  these  marriages,  which  wTe  for  our  part  are 
loth  to  believe,  our  only  reply  need  be,  that  all  their  pious 
predecessors  condemned 1  those  marriages ;  and  if  some  of 
our  Protestant  brethren  have  now  fallen  away  from  the  faith 
and  practice  of  their  forefathers,  whose  names  they  hold  in 
reverence,  we  humbly  hope  they  will  not  censure  us  for 
proving  our  reverence  for  their  forefathers  by  vindicating 
their  wisdom,  and  by  following  their  example. 

13.  But  we  are  told  that  many  persons  have  contracted 
these  marriages,  and  that  their  consciences  ought  to  be 
relieved,  and  their  embarrassments  removed,  by  the  repeal 
of  the  law.  To  this  w^e  reply,  Is  the  hedge  to  be  rooted  up, 
because  some  make  a  gap  in  it  ?  Is  the  wall  to  be  broken 
down,  because  Rome  overleap  it  ?  This  would  be  an  en- 
couragement to  crime.  Let  murders  and  thefts  and  adulteries 
only  become  numerous  enough,  and  on  such  a  plea  we  may 
be  required  to  abrogate  the  Decalogue.  Men's  sins  ought 
not  to  be  pleaded  as  a  reason  for  defying  God's  power,  and 
rescinding  God's  law,  and  for  bringing  down  His  judgments 
upon  us.2 

Let  us  here  offer  a  few  words  to  those  who  have  contracted 
these  marriages. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  we  do  not  sympathize  with 
them.  We  feel  for  them  deeply.  We  know  that  many 
women  have  been  entangled  in  these  marriages  by  repre- 
sentations that  they  are  not  forbidden  by  the  Divine  law, 
and  also  by  allegations  that  if  they  contract  these  marriages 

1  So  Beza,  Melancthon,  Luther,  and  Chemnitz.  See  Gerhard,  Loci 
Theologici  de  Coivjugio,  sec.  347,  vol.  vii.  p.  374,  the  Westminster  Divines, 
M.  Henry,  and  Dr.  C.  J.  Brown,  of  Edinburgh.  The  judgment  of  our 
Reformers  is  clear  from  the  "  Table  of  Degrees  "  set  forth  by  them,  and 
from  Reformatio  Legum,  fol.  23,  where  it  is  said  that  marriage  with  a 
deceased  wife's  sister  communi  doctorum  virorum  consensu  putatur  in 
Levitico  prohiberi. 

-  See  the  remarks  in  Archdeacon  Randall's  charge  for  1858,  pp.  16 — 21 ; 
and  Dwight's  "  Hebrew  Wife,"  edited  by  Dr.  Wardlaw,  Glasgow,  1837. 


Some  words  on  these  Marriages. 


253 


in  some  foreign  land  where  they  are  not  prohibited  by 
human  law,  they  become  valid  marriages  in  England — which 
is  a  great  mistake.  This  being  so,  we  readily  allow  that 
they  are  worthy  objects  of  tender  compassion.  We  mourn 
over  them.  But  true  sympathy  is  shown,  not  by  flattery, 
but  by  speaking  the  truth  in  love.  Their  marriage  is 
contrary  to  God's  law,  and  therefore  is  sinful,  for  sin  is  the 
breach  of  God's  law.3  Their  only  remedy  therefore  is  in 
repentance.  "  Except  ye  repent,"  says  our  Loi'd,  "ye  shall 
perish." 4  Let  them  therefore  not  harden  their  hearts 
against  Him,  and  so  provoke  His  wrath  and  incur  everlasting 
misery ;  but  let  them  confess  their  sin  to  Him,  and  pray  to 
Him  for  pardon  for  His  dear  Son's  sake,  Who  can  wash  them 
clean  from  sin ;  and  for  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that 
they  may  walk  before  Him  in  newness  of  life.  On  their  death- 
bed, at  the  day  of  judgment,  they  will  thank  us  for  these 
words.  What  is  to  be  done  in  any  particular  case  depends 
much  on  its  circumstances ;  the  advice  should  be  sought  of 
a  holy,  wise,  and  learned  spiritual  guide,  who  would  give 
counsel  and  comfort  to  the  penitent. 

Yet,  further,  Christian  charity  is  a  large  and  compre- 
hensive virtue.  It  has  sympathies  not  only  for  those  who 
break  the  law,  and  who  desire  it  to  be  repealed,  but  for  those 
who  obey  the  law,  and  wish  it  to  be  maintained.  In  our 
compassion  for  the  former,  let  us  not  forget  the  latter; 
let  us  not  betray  the  rights  and  impair  the  happiness 
of  husbands  who  love  their  wives'  sisters  as  their  own 
sisters,  and  admit  them  to  the  nearest  and  dearest  inter- 
course of  fraternal  affection.  And  let  us  not  inflict  an 
injury  on  those  sisters  of  a  wife,  who  are  now  received  into 
the  most  confidential  and  endearing  intercourse  in  the  home 
of  their  sister's  husband.  All  those  tender  relationships, 
which  impart  an  inexpressible  charm  and  delicate  sanctity 
to  our  English  homes,  would  be  scattered  to  the  winds  by 
the  repeal  of  the  law  of  God,  which  requires  a  husband  to 
regard  his  wife's  sisters  as  his  own  sisters,  and  to  honour 
and  love  them  as  such. 

Such  blessings  as  these  are  beyond  all  price.    If  you 
3  John  iii.  4.  ■*  Luke  xiii.  3. 


254 


miscellanies. 


marry  a  wife,  and  your  wife  has  a  sister,  you  are  received  at 
once  to  a  near  and  dear  friendship  with  her.  Her  sister  is 
your  sister :  you  love  her  as  a  sister,  and  she  loves  you  as  a 
brother.  You  have  gained  a  sister  by  marrying  a  wife ;  and 
they  also  have  gained,  the  one  a  husband  and  the  other  a 
brothei*,  without  losing  a  sister.  Thus  your  marriage  is 
doubly  blessed,  to  you  and  to  them.  In  your  wife's  sister 
you  have  one  with  whom  you  may  take  sweet  counsel  in 
time  of  joy  and  of  sorrow  :  she  will  rejoice  in  your  joys, 
and  sorrow  in  your  sorrows.  She  will  be  like  an  angel 
of  light,  and  love,  in  the  days  of  sickness  and  of  sorrow, 
to  yourself,  your  wife,  and  your  children.  She  may  be 
admitted  without  suspicion  to  the  privacy  of  the  sick- 
chamber  and  of  the  death-bed.  She  will  mingle  her  tears  with 
yours,  and  be  to  you  a  sister  indeed — a  sister  in  Jesus  Christ. 

14.  But,  let  this  law  be  repealed,  and  all  these  blessings 
are  gone  —  gone  for  ever.  The  morrow  after  its  repeal,  the 
sisters  of  all  the  wives  in  England,  and  the  wives  who  have 
sisters,  and  the  husbands  of  such  wives,  and  the  children  of 
such  husbands  and  wives,  will  find  their  position  changed. 
The  husband  will  have  lost  the  sister  whom  he  had  gained 
by  marriage.  The  wife  will  have  lost  the  sister  whom  she 
had  by  blood.  The  wife's  sister  will  have  ceased  to  be  a 
sister,  and  have  become  almost  a  stranger.  She  can  no 
longer  enter  the  house  with  the  same  freedom  and  familiarity 
as  before.  Or,  if  she  does,  what  jealousies  and  heart- 
burnings may  arise  !  The  wife  may  be  less  fair  than  her 
sister,  she  may  be  growing  old  and  infirm,  her  sister  may 
be  young  and  beautiful ;  then  comes  the  Tempter  and 
whispers  in  the  ear  of  frail  and  fallen  man  that  Divorce  has 
now  become  easy  in  England ;  and  we  may  follow  the  Jews 
and  those  other  nations 5  whose  example  is  here  so  earnestly 
commended  to  us  by  some  for  our  imitation,  and  make 
Divorce   easier   still ;    and   then,  fatal   result !  conjugal 

5  Who  consider  "incompatibility  of  temper"  as  a  sufficient  ground  for 
divorce.  Already  a  woman  divorced  "  a  vinculo  "  is  regarded  by  English 
law  as  dead,  and  her  husband  maj-  marry  another.  If  marriage  with  a 
deceased  wife's  sister  is  legalized,  then  marriage  with  a  divorced  wife's 
sister  will  soon  be  lawful  also. 


Results  of  such  Marriages. 


255 


estrangement  may  ensue,  and  a  separation  may  take  place, 
and  the  wife's  sister  may  supplant  the  wife,  and  may  be 
set  up  in  her  sister's  house,  at  her  sister's  table,  and  in  her 
sister's  place,  and  the  wife's  children  may  loathe  their  own 
home,  and  may  hate  their  mother's  sister,  and  their  own 
father,  as  the  authors  of  their  mother's  misery  and  of  their 
mother's  disgrace. 

15.  Nor  let  us  forget  the  sacred  rights  of  those  who 
minister  in  our  churches  and  at  our  altars.  What  is  the 
faithful  Parish  Priest  to  do,  if  a  man  or  a  woman  who  has 
contracted  one  of  these  marriages  present  himself  or  herself 
at  the  Lord's  Table  ?  Can  he  administer  to  them  those 
holy  mysteries  ?  Would  he  too  not  be  a  traitor  to  God  and 
His  Church,  whose  law  is  clear  on  this  point,  if  he  ventured 
to  do  so  ?  And  if  the  Civil  Power  should  legalize  such  a 
marriage  by  its  authority,  would  he  not  be  charged  with 
disloyalty  to  his  Sovereign,  and  to  the  Government  of  his 
country,  if  he  refused  to  do  so  ?  He  would  be  placed  in 
a  painful  dilemma ;  but  his  course  is  plain.  He  must 
obey  God  rather  than  men.6  But  it  will  be  an  evil  day  for 
England  when  the  Civil  Power  engages  in  a  conflict  with 
the  Church  of  God,  and  proclaims  war  against  the  Ministers 
of  God. 

16.  If  there  be  any  who  desire  to  contract  such  marriages 
as  these,  or  to  rescind  the  law  which  forbids  them,  let  them 
be  exhorted  to  pause  before  they  proceed  further. 

If,  as  our  forefathers  believed,  these  marriages  are  un- 
lawful ;  if,  as  all  Christendom  testified  for  fourteen  centuries 
after  Christ,  they  are  forbidden  by  God's  Word,  let  us  not 
begin  a  course  of  which  we  cannot  see  the  end.  If  we 
tamper  with  His  Law  in  one  point,  we  may  soon  be  led  on 
to  violate  the  whole.  Then  He  will  fight  against  us.  The 
vials  of  His  wrath  and  indignation,  which  were  discharged 
on  the  nations  of  Canaan,  will  be  poured  on  our  heads. 

Rather,  let  us  make  fresh  endeavours  to  vindicate  the 
purity  of  marriage,  and  to  defend  its  sanctity. 

Marriage  was  instituted  by  God,  in  order  to  diffuse  the 
blessings  of  society,  and  to  colonize  the  world.  Let  us 
f'  Acts  iv.  19 ;  v.  29. 


256 


JMiscellanies. 


not  allow  its  healthful  streams  to  be  pent  up  and  putrify 
in  the  sterile  and  stagnant  pools  of  consanguinity  and 
affinity ;  but  let  them  flow  far  and  wide,  in  free  and 
fruitful  freshness,  to  evangelize  the  earth,  and  to  people 
heaven. 

Then  we  may  cherish  the  hope,  that  when  He,  Who  is 
the  Divine  Bridegroom,  and  Who  has  espoused  our  Nature, 
and  has  joined  it  for  ever  to  the  Nature  of  God,  and  Who 
beautified  Marriage,  and  has  consecrated  it  to  such  an 
excellent  mystery  that  in  it  is  represented  and  signified 
the  spiritual  marriage  and  unity  betwixt  Himself  and  the 
Church/  shall  appear  again  in  glory,  to  receive  to  Himself 
the  Bride,  whom  He  loves  and  cherishes  as  His  own  flesh* 
we  may  be  invited  to  sit  down  at  the  marriage  feast  of 
the  Lamb  in  heaven,  and  to  taste  that  unalloyed  and  ever- 
lasting bliss  which  is  promised  to  the  pure  in  heart,9  who 
"  will  see  God." 

'  Eph.  vii.  27—33.  8  Eph.  v.  29.  9  Matt.  v.  8. 


ON  ENFORCED  CLERICAL  CELIBACY. 


A  few  days  before  I  left  England  for  Cologne  in  1872 
(see  above,  vol.  i.  p.  439),  I  received  a  letter  from  a  distin- 
guished Roman  Catholic  Ecclesiastic  (then  staying  in 
London)  well  known,  under  the  name  of  Pere  Hyacinthe, 
for  his  eloquent  Conferences  at  Notre  Dame,  Paris,  and  for 
his  recently  published  volume,  De  la  Reforme  Catholique. 
In  that  letter  he  forwarded  to  me  a  copy  of  a  communica- 
tion, which  he  had  addressed  to  the  President  of  the  Con- 
gress of  the  Old  Catholics  at  Cologne. 

He  had  in  the  first  instance  received  an  invitation  to  the 
Congress ;  but  afterwards  it  was  intimated  to  him  that  his 
presence  would  not  be  acceptable  to  some  members  of  it,  on 
account  of  his  Mamage. 

As  that  letter  from  this  eminent  French  Preacher,  and  its 
enclosure,  involved  a  grave  public  question  of  Ecclesiastical 
reform, — namely,  as  to  enforced  Clerical  Celibacy, — and 
appeared  to  have  an  important  bearing  on  the  practice  of 
the  English  Church,  and  the  character  of  the  English 
Clergy,  especially  of  married  English  Priests  and  Bishops, 
attending  the  Congress,  I  felt  it  to  require  some  notice  on 
my  part,  and  accordingly,  while  on  my  journey  through 
Belgium,  I  addressed  the  following  letter  from  Bruges  to 
the  President  of  the  Cologne  Congress  : — 

I  did  not  enter  into  the  circumstances  of  any  particular 
case,  but  limited  myself  to  the  general  question. 

Viro  spectatissi/mo ,  Oongressus  Coloniensis  Veterum  Catholi- 
corum  Prcesidi  8.  P.  D.,  Christopl korus  Wordsworth, 
Episcopus  Lincolniensis. 

Littekas  accepi  a  Viro  Reverendo,  Ilyacintho  Loyson,  scrip- 
VOL.  III.  s 


25^ 


Miscellanies. 


tas,  in  quibus  me  de  matrimonio  suo  Londini  celebrato, 
quippe  apud  suos  vetito,  certiorem  facit ;  et  in  quibus 
apograpliuui  mecum  communicat  Epistolee  ad  Te  datse,  in 
qua  quajstionem  proponit,  solenni  Vcterum  Catholicoruin 
Colonia)  cougrcgandoruni  suffrngio  dijudicandam,  utrum  se, 
ad  Congressuin  Vestruui  invitatum,  et  inagnopere  cupientem 
ei  interesse,  Vos  benevole  sitis  accepturi,  au,  propter  matri- 
monium  a  se  contractum,  tanquam  ob  facinus  admissum 
Sacerdote  Catliolico  indignurn,  a  ccetu  vestro  sitis  exclusuri  ? 

Huic  tain  gravi  quasstioni  memet  imniiscere  noluissem,  ne 
aliense  messi  falcem  immittere  viderer,  nisi  Vir  ille  integer- 
riinus  et  ornatissimus  me  tanquam  causa)  sua3  patronum, 
utcunque  indignum;  advocasset,  et  ne  amico  meo,  invidorum 
bominum  calumniis  et  opprobriis  lacessito,  deesse  existi- 
marer. 

Accessit  insuper  alia  res  non  levis  momenti,  propter  quam 
ad  Te,  Vir  eruditissime,  litteras  dare,  quamvis  raptim  in 
itinere  faciendo  chartas  illitas,  in  animum  induxerim.  Nos 
Episcopi  et  Presbyter!  Ecclesia3  Anglicanse  ccelibatum  a 
Sacerdote  Christiano  propter  majorem  Dei  gloriam  et 
animorum  salutem  sponte  susceptum  honore  et  reverentia 
prosequimur  :  sed  omnibus  Christi  Ministris  praescribi  debere 
tanquam  rem  necessariam  prorsus  negamus ;  imo  Matrimo- 
nium  sanctum  Sacerdoti  Christiano  non  tantum  consola- 
tionem  et  adminiculum  vitas  spiritualis,  sed  efficacissimum  ad 
asdificationem  populi  Christiani  adjumentum  esse  arbitramur. 

Hasc  igitur  res,  vestris  suffragiis  definienda,  nos  quoque 
tangit ;  et  ab  ilia  alia  pendere  videtur  quaastio,  nempe  utrum 
nos,  Ecclesiae  Anglicanas  Episcopos  et  Presbyteros,  de 
Matrimonio  Sacerdotali  ita  sentientes,  Vos  tanquam  vere 
Veteres  Gatholicos  sitis  agnituri  ? 

Praeclare  factum  est,  Vir  egregie,  ut  apud  vos,  Germanise 
lectissimos  viros,  hsec  quaestio  sit  dirimenda.  Nam  utingenii, 
constantiae,  et  eruditionis  dotes  taceam,  qua3  vos  ad  recte  de 
liac  re  judicandum  idoneos  arbitros  efficiant,  neminem 
fere  latet,  Germaniam  Sacerdotii  Christiani  jura  et  privilegia 
in  hac  potissimum  re  strenue  et  viriliter  vindicasse.  Cui 
non  notse  sunt  Valdrici  vestri,  Episcopi  Augustani,  sanctis- 
simi  viri,  contra  Pontificem  Romanum  Nicolaum  Primum  in 


C/crical  Celibacy ;  Scripture  and  the  Church.  259 


nemo  post  Christum  natum  sjeculo  pro  libertate  clericorum 
oonjugatorum  dimicautis  fortissimo)  et  invictissimoe  pro- 
testationcs?  Et  post  miserrimam  illam  servitutcm,  a 
Grcgorio  Septimo,  Hildebrando,  Sacerdotibus  Ckristiauis 
matrimonium  interdicentis  impositam,  et  nefariorum  flagi- 
tiorum  ct  spurcitiarum  immuudarum  fecundissimam,  de 
quibus  gemens  dolensque  couqueritur  S.  Bernardus  (Serm. 
in  Oantica,  •  ><>),  Germauia  fremuit  indignabunda,  et  jugum 
Cleri  Ckristiani  collo  excutere  nisa  est.  Recordamini, 
quagso,  Priucipum  vestrorum  inclytorum,  Ferdinandi  Secundi 
et  Maximiliani  Secundi,  Imperatorum,et  Sigismundi  Augusti, 
Polonia)  Regis,  et  Alberti  Ducis  Bavarici,  qui  Tridentini 
Concilii  Patres  vebementer  sunt  obtestati,  ut  antiquam 
Sacerdotii  Cliristiani  immunitatem  restituere  nou  refra- 
garentur. 

Agite  ergo,  Viri  oruatissimi,  et  Patrum  vestrorum  memores 
illustria  illorum  exempla  asniulamini. 

Possemus,  si  tempus  sineret,  ad  Concilii  Nicasni  Patres 
appellare,  qui  Sacerdotio  Christiano  Matrimonium  interdicere 
rogati  strenue  id  postulantibus  adversati  sunt  (Gelas.  Cyzic. 
Hist.  Condi.  Nic.  ii.  32,  cp.  Socrat.  IT.  E.  i.  11).  Possemus 
nomina  veterum  Episcoporum  conjugatorum,  et  cum  uxoribus 
suis  in  sancto  matrimonio  et  in  casto  amore  ad  mortem 
usque  degentium,  recitare.  Ecquis  ignorat  S.  Gregorium 
Nazianzenum,  Patriarcham  olim  Constantinopolitanum,  de 
Patre  suo  Episcopo  et  da  pia  ejus  Conjuge  eloquentissime 
coram  populo  verba  facientem  ?  (Greg.  Nazianz.  Orationes 
vii.,  xviii,  ed.  Paris.  1778.)  Ecquis  nescit  eundem  Antistitem 
epistola  suavissima  (Epist.  95)  consolantem  de  morte  con- 
jugis  S.  Gregorium  Nyssae  Episcopum,  qui  in  Concilio 
Constantinopolitano  inter  primarios  Prgesules  exstitit,  et  cui 
Symboli  Nica3ni  complementum  debet  Ecclesia  ?  S.  Patritius 
Hibernian  nostra)  Apostolus  patrem  et  avum  habuit  sacris 
ordinibus  initiatos.  S.  Hilarius  Pictaviensis,  S.  Pauliuus 
Nolanus,  uterque  Episcopus,  sauctitate  vita)  et  fidei  puritate 
notissimus,  cum  uxore  convixit.1 

1  In  the  Apostolical  Canons,  Canon  5,  it  is  decreed,  "If  a  Bishop  or 
Priest  eject  his  wife  on  the  plea  of  sanctity,  let  him  be  excommunicated." 
Compare  Concil.  Trullan.  can.  13,  Canon.  Apostol.50;  and  in  the  Council 

S  2 


Miscellanies. 


Sed  paticntife  vestra)  parcendum  est,  et  ad  alia  jam  fes- 
fcinandum.  Lex  ipsa  Pontificia,  Jus  inquam  Canonicum, 
ingenue  fatetur,  Copulam  Sacerdotalem  nec  Legali,  nec 
Evaugelica,  nec  Apostolica  auctoritate  proliiberi  (Cans.  26, 
qu.  2,  c.  1).  Confessio  sane  justa,  et  necessaria.  Sacerdotio 
Levitico  Matriuionium  non  tantum  non  interdictum,  sed 
quodammodo  commendatum  et  quasi  praescriptum  fuisse 
nqrunt  ornnes.  Etenim  sunimum  Sacerdotium  in  Aaronis 
familia,  hereditaria  successione  erat  continuandum  ;  et  Sacer- 
dotium Tribui  Levitieaa  lege  erat  adstrictum.  Matrimonio 
igitur  Sacerdotum  cessante,  cessasset  ipsum  sacerdotium. 

Prophetas  Hebraaorum,  viros  sanctissimos  et  Spiritu  Sancto 
afflatos,  Moysen,  Samuelem,  Esaiam,  Ezecbielem  conjugatos 
fuisse,  et  filios  habuisse,  recte  notat  S.  Chrysostomus'(Hb//i. 
56  in  S.  Matt.).  Sed  cur  in  Sacerdotibus  legalibus,  cur  in 
HebraBorum  Prophetis,  a  Deo  inspiratis,  immoramur  ?  S. 
Petrus,  Princeps  Apostolorum,  cujus  successorem  se  esse 
gloriatur  Pontifex  Roinanus,  non  tantum  uxorem  habuit 
(Matt.  viii.  14),  sed  cum  ea  in  Apostolatu  convixisse,  et  earn 
comitem  itinerum  Apostolicorum  secum  duxisse,  testatur 
Paulus  Apostolus  (1  Cor.  ix.  5) ;  id  quod  a  ceteris  quoque 
Apostolus  factitatum  esse  memorat,  et  a  fratribus  Domini. 
Uxorem  S.  Petri  ad  latus  adksesisse,  et  ad  martyrium  praa- 
cessisse,  refert  Clemens  Alexandrinus  (apud  Euseb.  H.  E.  iii. 
30).  Recte  igitur  fatetur  Tertullianus  Matrimonii  Censor 
pariim  aequus  (in  Exhort,  ad  Castit.  c.  8)  "  licuisse  et  Apostolis 
nubere,  et  uxorem  circumducere." 

Quid  plura  ?  In  Episcopatum,  Presbyteratem,  et  Diacona- 
tum  conjugatos  cooptari,  ad  familiam  pie  educandam,  in 
exemplum  gregis  sibi  commissi,  voce  Sancti  Pauli  Apostoli 
jubet  Spiritus  Dei  (1  Tim.  iii.  2,  12;  Tit.  i.  6).  In  omnibus 
Connubium  esse  honorabile  docet  Apostolus  (Heb.  xiii.  4)  ; 
et  dum  volnntarium  Ccelibatum  laudat,  omnibus  sine  excep- 
tione  Matrimonium  concedit  atque  commendat,  si  res  ita 
postulat,  ad  fornicationes  vitandas,  unusquisque  uxorem  suam 
liabeat  (1  Cor.  vii.  2),  et  eos  qui  prohibent  nubere  inter 
Anticliristianismi  fautores  diserte  enumerat  (1  Tim.  iv.  13). 

of  Gangra  (a.d.  362)  an  anathema  is  pronounced  against  those  who 
scruple  to  receive  the  Communion  from  a  married  Priest. 


On  Marriage  of  the  Clergy. 


261 


Ipsa  Romana  Ecclesia  Orientalis  Ecclesia)  Sacerdotes 
conjugatos  vere  esse  Sacerdotes  non  audet  infitiari.  Quod 
in  Orients  legitimum  est,  cur  in  Occidente  vetatur  ? 
Homines,  Sacerdotio  suscepto,  non  cessant  esse  homines  ; 
cur  contra  liumanam  naturam  rebellatur,  cur  Deo  natura) 
resistitur  ? 

A  parte  igitur  nostra  habemus  Leviticee  legis  Sacerdotes, 
habemus  Prophetas  Divino  Spiritu  afflatos,  habemus  Apos- 
tolos,  habemus  Prophetarum  et  Apostolorum  Ducem  atque 
Doctorem,  habemus  Christum.  His  gravibus  testimoniis 
atque  auctoribus  contenti  sumus.  Contra  hos  si  quid  Ecclesia 
queevis  imperaverit,  id  non  a  Cbristo  profectum  esse,  sed  a 
spiritu  Antichristi,  fidenter  asseveramus. 

Macte  igitur  estote^  Viri  praestantissimi,  et  primitivam 
Sacerdotio  Christiano  libertatem  vindicate.  Sic  deus 
vobis  favebit,  Qui  Matrimonium  in  Paradiso  instituit,  et 
Adamo  Evam  adduxitj  et  nuptiis  ejus  benedixit.  Vobis 
favebit  Christus,  Immaculatus  Ecclesias  Sponsus,  Qui 
primum  suum  miraculum  ad  conjugium  honestandum  edidit. 
Vobis  afflatu  Suo  favebit  Spiritus  Sanctus  Paracletus,  Qui 
omnia  gratia  sua  fecundans  et  divinaa  columbre  similitudine 
Sese  manifestans,  Se  esse  casti  amoris  praaconem  atque 
ministrum  universo  orbi  declaravit. 

Vale,  Vir  ornatissime,  et  nos  ama.  Scribebam  Brugis 
Belgarum,  in  Dominica  xv.  post  Trinitatem,  mdccclxxii. 


Let  me  here  insert  an  English  translation  of  the  above 
letter. 

The  Bishop  of  Lincoln  to  the  President  of  the  Congress  of  the 
Old  Catholics  at  Cologne. 

Sir, 

I  have  received  a  letter  from  the  Rev.  Hyacinthe  Loyson, 
informing  me  of  his  marriage,  which  recently  took  place  in 
London- — not  being  permitted  in  France — and  forwarding  to 
me  a  copy  of  a  communication  addressed  by  him  to  you,  in 
which  he  requests  that  the  question  may  be  submitted  to 
the  vote  of  the  Congress  at  Cologne,  whether  he,  having 
been  invited  to  the  Congress,  and  being  very  desirous  of 


262 


Miscellanies. 


being  present  at  it,  will  be  welcomed  by  its  members ;  or 
whether  they  will  exclude  him  from  their  assembly,  on  ac- 
count of  the  marriage  he  has  contracted,  on  the  ground  that 
such  an  act  is  incompatible  with  the  position  he  holds  as  a 
Priest  of  the  Catholic  Church  ? 

I  should  be  unwilling  to  mix  myself  up  with  this  grave 
question,  for  fear  of  appearing  to  intrude  in  a  matter  which 
did  not  concern  me,  unless  I  had  been  appealed  to  by  a 
person  whom  I  honour  for  his  integrity  and  ability,  and  lest 
I  should  seem  to  desert  a  friend  who  is  the  object  of  attack 
and  obloquy. 

I  am  actuated  also  by  another  consideration,  which  induces 
me,  most  learned  Sir,  to  address  you  in  this  letter,  though  it 
must  needs  be  hastily  written  by  me  while  on  a  journey. 
We,  the  Bishops  and  Presbyters  of  the  English  Church, 
greatly  honour  Celibacy,  when  voluntarily  chosen  by  a 
Christian  Priest  for  the  sake  of  God's  glory  and  the  salva- 
tion of  souls;  but  we  altogether  deny  that  it  ought  to  be 
imposed,  as  a  thing  necessary,  on  all  Christian  Ministers; 
and  further  we  affirm,  that  holy  Matrimony  is  not  only  a 
comfort  to  a  Christian  Priest,  and  a  help  to  his  spiritual  life, 
but  that  it  is  also  an  efficacious  instrument  for  the  good 
example  and  edification  of  the  people  committed  to  his 
charge. 

This  question,  therefore,  which  has  now  been  propounded 
to  you,  concerns  us  also.  It  involves  another  inquiry — viz. 
whether  you  are  willing  to  receive  as  Old  Catholics  us 
Bishops  and  Presbyters  of  the  English  Church,  who  hold 
such  opinions  as  these  concerning  the  marriage  of  Christian 
Priests  ? 

It  is  a  fortunate  circumstance,  honourable  Sir,  that  this 
question  is  to  be  decided  by  you  who  are  among  the  leading 
men  of  Germany.  Not  to  mention  the  ability,  constancy, 
and  learning  which  qualify  you  for  a  determination  of  this 
question,  it  is  a  thing  well  known  to  all,  that  Germany  has 
vindicated  in  this  respect  with  manly  boldness  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  Christian  Priesthood.  Who  has  not 
heard  of  the  brave  protests  of  that  holy  man,  your  Waldric 
Bishop  of  Augsburg,  contending  in  the  ninth  century  against 


On  enforced  Clerical  Celibacy. 


263 


Pope  Nicholas  the  First  for  the  liberties  of  a  married  priest- 
hood? and  when  Pope  Gregory  the  Seventh,  Hildebrand, 
prohibited  the  marriage  of  Priests,  and  imposed  upon  them 
that  wretched  bondage  which  has  borne  the  bitter  fruits  of 
unutterable  profligacy  and  the  foulest  uncleanness,  as  the 
holy  Bernard  laments  with  groans  and  tears,  Germany  sent 
forth  a  cry  of  indignation,  and  strove  to  shake  off  the  yoke 
from  the  neck  of  the  Priesthood.  Let  me  entreat  you  to 
call  to  mind  the  names  of  those  your  illustrious  Princes,  the 
Emperors  Ferdinand  the  Second  and  Maximilian  the  Second, 
Sigismond  Augustus,  King  of  Poland,  and  Albert,  Duke  of 
Bavaria,  who  earnestly  conjured  the  Fathers  of  the  Council 
of  Trent  to  restore  the  ancient  liberties  of  the  Christian 
Ministry..  Let  me  implore  you,  accomplished  Sir,  to  remem- 
ber the  glorious  names  of  your  ancestors,  and  to  imitate 
their  examples. 

If  time  allowed,  I  might  refer  to  the  Fathers  of  the 
Council  of  Niceea,  who,  being  desired  by  some  to  forbid  the 
Christian  Priesthood  to  marry,  made  a  strenuous  opposition 
to  that  proposal.  I  might  remind  you  of  the  names  of 
ancient  Bishops  who  were  married,  and  who  lived  with 
their  wives  in  holy  matrimony  and  in  chaste  love  to  the  day 
of  their  death.  Who  is  there  that  does  not  know  that 
S.  Gregory  Nazianzen,  who  was  Archbishop  of  Constan- 
tinople, delivered  eloquent  sermons  in  public  concerning  his 
father,  Bishop  of  that  See,  and  his  pious  wife  ?  Who  is 
there  that  has  not  heard  that  the  same  Prelate  consoled  in  a 
very  touching  letter  his  dear  friend  who  had  lost  his  wife, 
S.  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Nyssa,  who  held  a  chief  place  among 
the  Bishops  in  the  Council  of  Constantinople,  and  to  whom 
the  Church  owes  the  completion  of  the  Nicene  Creed  ?  The 
father  and  grandfather  of  S.  Patrick,  the  Apostle  of  our 
Ireland,  were  in  Holy  Orders,  as  he  himself  tells  us. 
S.  Hilary,  Bishop  of  Poictiers,  S.  Paulinas,  Bishop  of  Nola, 
both  of  them  Prelates  distinguished  by  the  holiness  of  their 
lives  and  the  purity  of  their  faith,  lived  in  the  state  of 
matrimony. 

But  I  must  spare  your  patience,  and  hasten  to  another 
topic.   The  Papal  Code, — the  Canon  Law, — frankly  confesses 


264 


Miscellanies. 


that  "the  marriage  of  Priests  is  not  forbidden  by  the 
Mosaic  Code,  nor  by  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  nor  by  the 
authority  of  the  Apostles."  A  just  and  necessary  avowal. 
Yet  more ;  the  Levitical  Code  not  only  did  not  interdict 
marriage  to  the  Levitical  Priesthood,  but  it  rather  com- 
mended  and  prescribed  it.  The  High  Priesthood  was  to  be 
continued  by  hereditary  succession  in  the  family  of  Aaron, 
and  the  Priesthood  was  limited  to  the  Tribe  of  Levi.  There- 
fore, if  the  marriage  of  Levitical  Priests  had  ceased,  there 
would  have  been  a  cessation  of  the  Levitical  Priest- 
hood. 

It  is  well  noted  by  S.  C'hrysostom,  in  one  of  his  homilies, 
that  the  Hebrew  Prophets,  who  were  renowned  for  their 
sanctity,  and  were  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost, — such  as 
Moses,  Samuel,  Isaiah,  Ezekiel, — were  married,  and  had 
children.  But  why  speak  of  Levitical  Priests  or  Hebrew 
Prophets  ?  St.  Peter  himself,  the  first  of  the  Apostles,  ho 
whose  successor  the  Bishop  of  Rome  boasts  himself  to  be, 
not  only  had  a  wife,  but  lived  with  her  during  his  Apostle- 
ship,  and  led  her  about  with  him  as  a  companion  in  his 
Apostolic  journeys,  as  St.  Paul  himself  states,  who  adds  that 
the  same  thing  was  done  by  the  "  rest  of  the  Apostles,  and 
the  brethren  of  the  Lord."  We  are  informed  by  Clement 
of  Alexandria  that  St.  Peter's  wife  remained  in  his  company 
till  her  death,  and  went  before  him  to  martyrdom.  Rightly, 
therefore,  is  it  confessed  by  Tertullian,  who  was  not  biassed 
in  favour  of  matrimony,  "  that  it  was  lawful  for  the  Apostles 
to  marry,  and  to  lead  about  their  wives  with  them"  in  their 
missionary  travels. 

Yet  further.  The  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  speaking  by  the 
mouth  of  the  Apostle  St.  Paul,  enjoins  that  married  persons 
should  be  ordained  and  consecrated  to  the  Episcopate, 
Presbyterate,  and  Diaconate  of  the  Church ;  that  they  may 
be  examples  to  the  flock  by  the  pious  education  and  godly 
rule  of  their  families.  "  Marriage  is  honourable  among  all 
men,"  says  the  Apostle.  And  while  he  praises  voluntary 
celibacy,  he  concedes  and  commends  marriage  to  all  men 
without  exception,  if  their  circumstances  require  it.  "  To 
avoid  fornication,"  he  says,  "  let  every  one  have  his  own 


Teaching  of  Scripture  and  the  Church.  265 

wife;"  and  yet  more,  they,  ''who  forbid  to  marry"  are 
classed  by  him  among  the  followers  of  Antichrist. 

The  Church  of  Rome  herself  does  not  dare  to  deny  that 
the  Priests  of  the  Eastern  Church,  who  are  married,  are 
right  and  lawful  Priests.  What  is  right  and  lawful  in  the 
East,  why  is  it  foi'bidden  by  her  in  the  West  ?  Men  do  not 
cease  to  be  men  when  they  become  Priests.  Why  this 
rebellion  against  Human  nature  ? — why  this  resistance  to 
Nature's  God  ? 

We  have  on  our  side  the  Priests  of  the  Levitical  Law ; 
we  have  on  our  side  the  Hebrew  Prophets,  inspired  by  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  we  have  the  Apostles ;  we  have  the  Leader, 
Teacher,  and  Loi'd  of  Prophets  and  Apostles — Jesus  Christ. 
We  are  content  with  these  authorities.  And  if  any  Church 
upon  earth  dares  to  command  anything  which  is  opposed  to 
them,  we  confidently  affirm  that  such  a  command  does  not 
come  from  Christ,  but  from  the  spirit  of  Antichrist. 

Take  courage,  therefore,  honoured  Sirs,  and  restore  its 
primitive  liberty  to  the  Christian  Priesthood.  In  so  doing 
you  will  be  favoured  by  God,  who  instituted  marriage  in 
Paradise,  and  brought  Eve  to  Adam  and  pronounced  a 
blessing  on  their  wedlock.  You  will  be  favoured  by  Christ, 
the  Immaculate  Bridegroom  of  the  Church,  who  worked 
His  first  miracle  for  the  adornment  of  Marriage.  You  will 
receive  a  benediction  from  the  Holy  Ghost  the  Comforter, 
who  makes  all  things  fruitful  by  His  grace,  and  who  made 
Himself  manifest  in  the  likeness  of  a  Dove  at  the  Baptism 
of  Christ,  and  thus  declared  to  the  world  that  He  is  the 
Herald  and  Minister  of  chaste  and  pure  lbye. 

Farewell,  accomplished  Sir,  and  honour  me  with  your 
friendship.  Bruges,  on  the  fifteenth  Sunday  after  Trinity, 
1872. 

C.  LINCOLN. 

I  arrived  at  Cologne  from  Aix-la-Chapelle  on  the 
evening  of  Monday,  September  15th. 

Pere  Hyacinthe  received  a  letter  from  the  President  of  the 
Cologne  Committee,  informing  him  that  there  was  no  wish 
on  his  part  to  withdraw  the  invitation  that  had  been  sent  to 


266 


Miscellanies. 


him.  Accordingly,  Pere  Hyacinthe  came  to  Cologne,  and 
was  present  at  the  sessions  of  the  Congress.  The  question, 
however,  of  enforced  clerical  celibacy  was  reserved  for 
future  consideration.  It  was  mentioned  incidentally  at 
some  of  the  meetings ;  and  there  could  be  little  doubt  as  to 
the  opinion  of  the  Congi-ess  upon  it. 

The  obligation  to  celibacy  has  now  been  abolished;  and 
the  Clergy  of  the  Old  Catholics  are  permitted  to  marry 
(Dec.  1878). 


ON  SISTERHOODS  AND  VOWS. 


From  the  consideration  of  the  Law  of  Marriage  and  Divorce 
we  may  pass  to  the  question  of  Vows  of  Celibacy  in  the 
Sisterhoods  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  following  letter 
on  that  subject  was  written  by  me  to  the  Ven.  Sir  George 
Prevost,  Bart.,  Archdeacon  of  Gloucester  (June  1,  1878). 

My  dear  Sir  George, 

When  some  weeks  ago  you  favoured  me  with  a  copy 
of  the  Report  of  the  Committee — whose  Chairman  you  were 
— of  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation  on  "  Sisterhoods  and 
Deaconesses,"  you  accompanied  it  with  a  request  for  such 
remarks  as  might  occur  to  me  in  reading  it.  Since  that 
time,  that  Report  has  been  discussed  in  an  interesting 
debate  in  the  Lower  House,  and  a  Joint  Committee  of  both 
Houses  of  the  Convocation  of  this  Province  has  been  ap- 
pointed to  suggest  resolutions  upon  it.1 

The  subject  is  one  of  much  importance  and  intricacy;  it 
demands  careful  consideration  and  study,  and  requires  that 
statements  with  respect  to  it  should  be  made  with  caution, 
clearness,  and  accuracy.  I  should  therefore  feel  some  diffi- 
culty in  dealing  with  it  in  the  ordinary  limits  of  a  speech  in 
Convocation ;  and  I  am  thankful  to  be  allowed  to  avail 
myself  of  the  opportunity  you  have  kindly  offered  me  of 

1  The  words  of  the  resolution,  moved  by  Sir  George  Prevost,  and 
seconded  by  Canon  Rawlinson  (with  a  slight  amendment  by  Canon 
Simmons),  were  as  follows  : — 

"  That  their  Lordships  of  the  Upper  House  be  humbly  requested  to 
direct  their  attention  to  the  recognition  and  regulation  of  these  Institu- 
tions by  the  Synods  of  the  Church  ;  and  (if  they  should  think  good)  to 
appoint,  by  his  Grace's  authority,  a  Joint  Committee  to  lay  down  the 
general  principles  upon  which  such  recognition  and  regulation  may  be 
based." 


268 


Miscellanies. 


expressing  my  thoughts  upon  it  in  writing.  The  subject  is 
now  more  important,  because  it  has  been  engaging  the 
attention  of  the  Sister  Church  of  America  in  her  last  three 
General  Conventions. 

And  first  let  me  premise  that  I  fully  concur  in  the  lan- 
guage of  cordial  sympathy  and  admiration  with  which  the 
Report  speaks  of  the  self-devotion  of  those  Christian  women 
who  are  associated  in  Sisterhoods,  and  who  have  laboured 
earnestly  in  the  cause  of  Christ  and  His  Church. 

It  has  been  my  happiness  to  have  been  connected  with  a 
Sisterhood  since  its  foundation  thirty  years  ago, — the  Sister- 
hood of  St.  John  the  Evangelist, — which  has  now  the  charge 
of  nursing  the  sick  in  two  of  the  principal  Hospitals  in 
London — King's  College  Hospital  and  Charing  Cross  Hos- 
pital ;  and  the  authorities  of  both  those  great  institutions 
have  borne  honourable  testimony  to  the  services  rendered 
by  the  Sisters  of  St.  John's  House  in  elevating  the  character 
of  nurses,  and  in  ministering  to  the  sick  and  suffering.  The 
work  done  by  Sisterhoods  in  maintaining  and  advancing 
Christian  Education,  at  home  and  abroad,  and  in  other 
labours  of  Christian  love,  are  entitled  to  grateful  acknow- 
ledgment. 

It  is  evident  that  their  excellence  and  value  in  these  and 
other  respects  suggest  strong  motives  for  the  wise  counsels 
and  salutary  warnings  of  your  Committee,  lest  through  any 
flaws  or  blemishes  in  their  organization,  or  by  any  indiscre- 
tions or  irregularities  in  their  acts,  their  "  good  should  be 
evil  spoken  of,"  and  their  work  be  marred  and  hindered. 
Rather  let  us  hope  and  pray  that  by  the  divine  blessing  on 
the  deliberations  of  the  Synod  of  this  Province,  in  this  grave 
matter,  the  cause  of  Sisterhoods  may  be  strengthened  and 
promoted,  and  their  usefulness  increased  and  consolidated. 

In  dealing  with  this  subject  the  primary  appeal  must  be 
to  Holy  Sckiptuke. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  St.  Paul  speaks  of  celibacy  as 
affording  special  advantages  for  holiness  of  life.  He  wishes 
that  all  men  were  like  himself  in  that  respect.  But  in  doing 
so  he  never  forgets  what  human  nature  is,  and  that  different 
persons  have  different  gifts  from  God  (1  Cor.  vii.  7;  xii.  11  ; 


St.  Paul  on  Vows  of  Celibacy.  269 


cf.  Matt.  xix.  11,12).  He  condemns  those  who  forbid  to 
marry  (I  Tim.  iv.  3),  ho  says  that  marriage  is  honourable  in 
all  (Heb.  xiii.-4),  he  wills  that  younger  women  should  marry 
(1  Tim.  v.  14),  he  says,  for  reasons  derived  from  human 
infirmity,  "  Let  every  man  have  his  own  wife,  and  every 
woman  her  own  husband"  (1  Cor.  vii.  2). 

This  being  the  case,  we  find  that  the  Apostle  is  very 
cautious  in  his  directions  with  regard  to  the  self-dedication 
of  women  to  singleness  of  life.  Though  widows  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  been  chastened  by  sorrow,  he  will  not  allow 
them  to  be  set  apart  by  a  vow  of  celibacy  to  the  service  of 
Christ  and  His  Church,  and  be  enrolled  as  such,  till  they 
have  attained  the  age  of  sixty  years  3  (1  Tim.  v.  9) . 

Some  indeed  have  imagined  (see  below,  page  287)  that 
St.  Paul  is  here  speaking  of  almswonien,  to  be  main- 
tained from  the  funds  of  the  Church.  No  doubt  these 
widows  were  entitled  to  maintenance  from  the  Church,  but 
it  was  because  they  gave  themselves  by  voluntary  dedication, 
to  the  service  of  the  Church.  This  is  clear  from  the  context, 
where  he  commands  the  Bishop  of  Ephesus,  St.  Timothy,  to 
reject  younger  widows  who  may  offer  themselves  for  such 
dedication  :  the  reason  given  for  this  prohibition  being  that 
"  when  they  have  waxed  wanton  against  Christ  they  will 
marry,"  or  rather,  they  wish  to  marry,3  and  incur  severe 
sentence  of  censure  by  annulling  their  troth  to  Christ  (1  Tim. 
v.  12). 

It  may,  I  conceive,  be  fairly  argued,  that  since  St.  Paul 
commands  that  widows  are  not  to  be  allowed  by  the  Church 
to  dedicate  themselves  by  a  vow  of  celibacy  before  they  are 

3  The  age  for  a  deaconess,  by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  a.d.  451,  c.  15, 
was  forty  years ;  but  in  Cod.  Theodos.  de  Episcopis  Leg.  27,  "  Nulla 
nisi  emensis  sexaginta  annis  secundum  Apostoli  pr&ceptum  ad  dia- 
conissarum  consortium  provehatur."  See  also  Ziegler  de  Diaconissis  ; 
Wittenberg,  1678,  pp.  351—356. 

3  On  this  statement  of  St.  Paul,  see  S.Augustine  de  sancta  Virginitate, 
cap.  34,  and  de  bono  Viduitatis,  cap.  12.  Our  English  translation  "  they 
will  marry  "  hardly  suggests  to  the  reader  tbe  true  meaning  of  the 
original  yafiflv  OeXovai,  "  nubere  volunt  "  (Vulg.),  i.  e.  they  wish  to  marry, 
— whether  in  fact  they  marry  or  no.  Tbe  word  "damnation"  in  our 
version  (derived  from  the  Vulgate  here)  is  not  to  be  understood  according 
to  the  more  modern  and  rigorous  sense  of  it. 


M '  isccllanics. 


sixty  years  of  age,  he  would  not  Lave  permitted  the  Church 
to  impose  upon  young  uumarried  women  a  vow  of  celibacy, 
or  have  allowed  them  to  take  such  a  vow  of  celibacy  in  the 
presence  of  Bishops  or  Priests  of  the  Church. 

This  conclusion  appears  to  be  confirmed  by  sub-Apostolic 
testimony.  S.  Ignatius,  Bishop  of  Antioch  and  disciple  of 
St.  John  says,4  "  Do  not  impose  on  any  one  the  yoke  of 
celibacy ;  for  it  is  a  perilous  thing  and  hard  to  be  kept,  when 
it  is  laid  on  by  constraint.  Exhort  young  men  to  marry." 
He  also  says,5  "  If  any  one  is  able  to  remain  in  holy  celibacy, 
for  the  glory  of  the  Lord  of  his  flesh,  let  him  so  abide  with- 
out boasting ;  if  he  boasts  he  perishes."  And  again,6  "Who- 
ever says  anything  against  the  divine  rules,  even  though  he 
fasts  and  lives  in  celibacy,  let  him  be  deemed  by  thee  to  be 
a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing,  tearing  the  flock.'" 

It  seems  that  unmarried  women  were  enrolled  into  the 
same  Ecclesiastical  order  as  widows,  and  probably  at  the 
same  age,  and  were  even  sometimes  styled  widows  on  that 
account.  S.  Ignatius  says  in  one  of  his  Epistles,  "  I  salute 
the  Virgins  who  are  called  widows." 7 

This  is  confirmed  by  a  passage  of  Tertullian,  in  the  fol- 
lowing century,  who,  though  a  rigid  ascetic  and  no  friend  to 
marriage,  expresses  his  great  astonishment  that  a  Virgin 
had  been  admitted  (probably  in  some  schismatical  or  here- 
tical society)  among  the  widows  at  the  age  of  twenty  years.8 
He  then  mentions  the  rule  of  the  Church  that  its  widows 
should  be  sixty  years  of  age,  and  he  describes  the  functions 
of  those  who  were  engaged  as  such,  in  woi'ks  of  piety,  mercy, 
and  charity. 

In  the  next  age,  Tertullian' s  follower,  St.  Cyprian,  Bishop 
of  Carthage,  says  plainly  that  at  that  time  (the  first  half  of 
the  third  century)  there  were  young  unmarried  women  who 
devoted  themselves  to  labours  of  love,  and  who  seemed  to 
have  an  intention  and  purpose  (propositus)  of  leading  a 

4  S.  Ignatius,  Fragment  vi.  5  S.  Ignat,  ad  Poljc.  cap.  5. 

6  S.  Ignatius,  Frag.  ix. 

7  S.  Ignat.  ad  Smyrn.,  cap.  13.  See  Bishop  Jacobson's  notes  on  the 
passage. 

8  Tertullian,  de  Virginibus  velandis,  cap.  9. 


Testimony  of  the  early  Church. 


271 


single  life;9  bnt  he  distinctly  says  that  they  were  under  no 
vow  of  celibacy,  and  were  free  to  marry ;  and,  in  certain 
circumstances  they  were  advised  to  do  so. 

"  If,"  says  he,1  "  they  have  dedicated  themselves  faithfully 
to  Christ,  let  them  persevere  in  modesty  and  chastity,  and 
so,  in  strength  and  stableness,  let  them  hope  for  the  reward 
of  virginity.  But  if  they  are  unwilling  or  unable  to  per- 
severe, it  is  better  for  them  to  marry  than  to  fall  into  the 
fire  by  their  sins.  Certainly  let  not  them  put  any  stumbling- 
block  in  the  way  of  their  brethren  or  sisters."  He  evidently 
implies  that  their  marriage  would  not  cause  offence.  And 
as  the  learned  Editor  of  S.  Cyprian's  works,  Bishop  Fell, 
remarks  in  his  notes  on  the  passage,  "  They  dedicated  them- 
selves to  Christ  by  purpose  of  mind  and  public  profession  of 
virginity,  but  were  not  bound  by  any  vow,"  and  the  erudite 
French  Roman-Catholic  Editor  Rigaltius  agrees  with  the 
English  Bishop  in  this  opinion. 

In  the  following  ages  of  the  Church,  that  is,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  fourth  century  and  during  the  fifth,  a  change 
took  place  in  these  respects.  Social  life  at  Rome  (as  S. 
Jerome  shows)  was  dissolved.  The  Barbarians  from  the 
North-East,  sweeping  on  in  successive  waves  of  inundation, 
overwhelmed  Italy  and  Africa.  Even  in  the  days  of  S. 
Ambrose  (a.d.  340 — 397)  property  and  person  were  insecure, 
and  the  havoc  made  at  the  capture  of  Rome  by  the  Goths 
(a.d.  410),  and  the  desolation  of  Africa  by  the  Vandals,  are 
themes  for  lamentation  and  woe  in  the  letters  and  other 
works  of  S.  Jerome  (a.d.  345 — 420)  and  S.  Augustine  (a.d. 
354—430). 

No  wonder  that  on  account  of  the  then  "present  distress  " 
(1  Cor.  vii.  26)  single  life  had  special  attractions  for  young 
women ;  and  their  parents  would  not  be  unwilling  to  en- 
courage this  profession.  The  cares  of  a  family  would  press 
heavily  upon  those  who  were  married,  and  the  uncertainty 

9  In  those  days,  as  the  learned  Roman  Catholic  writer  Thomassinus 
observes  (de  Antiq.  Eccl.  Discipl.,  part  i.  lib.  iii.  vol.  iii.  p.  355), 
"  Frequentior  intentio  (virginitatis)  quam  professio  aperta." 

1  S.  Cyprian,  Epist.  ad  Pomponium,  p.  8,  ed.  Fell,  Amst.,  1691,  a 
reprint  of  the  Oxford  edition  of  1082. 


272 


Miscellanies. 


and  vicissitude  of  all  earthly  things,  when  at  last  Rome 
herself,  the  queen  of  the  world,2  became  a  captive  and  sat  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes,  raised  the  eyes  of  the  faithful  upward 
to  their  heavenly  King  and  to  their  eternal  home. 

The  Bishop  of  Milan,  S.  Ambrose,  had  been  the  great 
preacher  of  celibacy  in  the  West,  and  he  was  followed  by  S. 
Jerome  and  S.  Augustine.  The  writings  of  these  Fathers3 
on  this  subject  deserve  careful  attention;  to  which  may  be 
added  the  Treatise  on  Virginity,  ascribed  by  some  to  S. 
Basil,  in  the  East,  the  contemporary  of  S.  Ambrose. 

S.  Ambrose  inculcates  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul,  that 
widows  should  not  be  enrolled  as  such  in  the  service  of  the 
Church  under  a  vow  of  celibacy  till  sixty  years  of  age ;  and 
that  younger  widows  should  be  refused4  as  not  qualified  for 
the  work;  and  S.  Basil  says/  "  If  a  widow  (of  the  Church) 
who  has  passed  her  sixtieth  year  contracts  a  second  marriage, 
she  is  to  be  excommunicated  till  she  repents.  But  if  we 
have  admitted  a  widow  into  the  roll  before  that  age,  it  is  not 
the  woman's  fault,  if  she  marries,  but  ours."  S.  Ambrose 
says  that  Virginity  is  not  to  be  imposed  on  any.  "  Virginitas 
non  imponitur  sed  prasponitur."  6 

The  admission  of  the  Virgins  into  the  service  of  the 
Church  was  fenced  by  many  safeguards.  By  the  canons  of 
some  churches  (even  after  the  days  of  St.  Ambrose)  a  Virgin 
could  not  be  admitted  before  the  age  of  forty.7    She  could 

2  See  S.  Jerome,  Epist.  xcvi.,  ad  Principiam  Virginem,  p.  783. 

3  S.  Ambrose,  de  Virginibus,  ad  Marcellinam  sororem,  libri  tres  (torn, 
iii.  pp.  224—249).  De  Viduis,  liber  unus,  pp.  250—266.  De  Virginitate, 
pp.  267—288.  De  Institutione  Virginis,  liber  unus,  pp.  289—305. 
Exbortatio  Virginitatis,  pp.  306 — 322.   De  Lapsu  Virginis,  pp.  323 — 331. 

S.  Jerome,  Epist.  xviii.  ad  Eustochium  de  custodia  Virginitatis,  p.  27. 
Epist.  xcvii,  ad  Demetriadem  de  servanda  Virginitate,  p.  784,  torn.  iv.  ed. 
Paris,  1706. 

S.  Augustine,  de  bono  Conjugali,  vi.  542 — 570.  De  Sancta  Virginitate, 
pp,  579 — 618.   De  bono  Viduitatis,  pp.  626 — 650,  torn.  vi.  ed.  Paris,  1837. 

S.  Basil,  de  vera  Virginitate,  torn.  iii.  p.  589,  ed.  Paris,  1730.  This 
Treatise  was  written  in  the  fourth  century  ;  but  not  probably  by  S.  Basil. 

4  De  Viduis,  cap.  2.  5  S.  Basil,  Canon,  ad  Amphiloch,  Ep.  2. 

r>  Ibid.  cap.  12.  See  also  S.  Augustine,  de  Sancta  Virginitate,  c.  30, 
"  Non  ex  necessitate,  sed  vestra?  voluntatis." 

7  Council  of  Saragossa,  a.d.  418,  Can.  8.  This  was  passed  unanirnouslj-, 
and  so  the  Council  of  Agde,  a.d.  506,  Can.  19. 


Rules  for  Dedication  of  Virgins. 


273 


not  be  admitted  by  a  Priest.8  The  approval  of  the  Bishop 
of  the  Diocese  was  requisite.9  The  Bishop,  not  the  abbess, 
was  to  have  the  oversight  of  them.1  The  Bishop  was  obliged 
to  proceed  in  the  matter  with  great  caution  and  deliberation. 
He  must  examine  into  her  character2  and  qualifications 
with  scrupulous  attention.  He  must  inquire  whether  (pray 
remark  this)  she  would  be  under  the  safe  custody  of  her 
mother,  and  the  grave  attendance  of  companions.  If  such 
conditions  as  these  were  not  satisfied,  she  was  not  to  be 
received. 

When  she  had  been  dedicated  as  a  Virgin,  she  then 
became  a  spouse  of  Christ,3  and  had  renounced  the  world ; 
her  life  was  to  be  one  of  holy  exercises,  of  rigid  asceticism, 
of  private  seclusion.  Her  chamber  was  to  be  an  oratory  ; 4 
she  was  to  pass  her  days  there  in  fasting  and  prayer,  in 
singing  psalms  and  hymns,  in  reading  Holy  Scripture ;  she 
was  allowed  to  do  some  women's  works;  she  was  not 
permitted  to  leave 3  the  house,  "  prodire  domo  nescia,"  says 
S.  Ambrose,6  unless  to  go  to  church;  she  was  forbidden  to 
converse  with  men,  even  with  holy  men ; 7  and  with  women, 
except  her  nearest  relations.8  If  the  virgin  had  no  parents, 
and  could  not  dwell  at  home,  she  was  consigned  to  the  care 
of  some  grave  matrons  in  a  monastery,  which  she  was  never 

3  Council  of  Rouen,  Can.  9. 
9  Concil.  Carthag.  iii.  Can.  3G. 

1  Fifth  Council  of  Aries,  Can.  5,  "  The  Bishop  is  to  have  the  oversight 
of  the  Monasteries  of  the  Virgins ;  and  the  Abbess  must  do  nothing 
contrary  to  the  rules." 

2  S.  Ambrose,  de  Virginitate,  cap.  7. 

3  "  Immortali  nupsisti  Viro,"  says  S.  Ambrose,  de  Lapsu  Virginis, 
c.  5. 

4  S.  Jerome,  Epist.  98,  ad  Gaudentium,  "  In  cubiculo  suo  totas  delicias 
habeat;  discat  memoriter  psalterium ;  libros  Salomonis,  Evangelia, 
Apostolos  et  Prophetas  sui  cordis  thesaurum  faciat." 

S.  Ambrose,  de  Virginibus,  iii.  15,  and  de  Inst.  Virg.  cap.  16.  S. 
Ambrose,  Exbortat.  cap.  9,  "Quaere  Christum  in  cubiculo  tuo,"  &c. 
s  De  Virgin,  ii.  2. 

6  De  Inst.  Virg.  cap.  1,  and  Exhort.  Virg.  cap.  10.  "  Nullus  sit  tuus 
sine  matre  processus ;  ipsa  quoque  ad  Ecclesiam  processio  rarior  sit  ado- 
lescentulis."    S.  Basil,  de  Virg.  cap.  19. 

7  S.  Basil,  de  Virgin,  cap.  37. 

8  S.  Ambrose,  Exhort.  Virg.  cap.  10. 

VOL.  III.  T 


2  74 


Miscellanies. 


to  leave/  except  for  special  reasons.  No  one  had  free  access 
to  her  there 1  but  the  bishop/  and  the  priest  who  came  to 
celebrate  the  offices  of  the  Church. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Virgins  of  the  Church  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century,  and  in  the  fifth  and 
sixth  centuries. 

In  addition  to  these  cautionary  measures,  by  which  the 
Virgins  of  the  Church  were  precluded  from  opportunities 
of  intercourse  with  men,  and  from  temptation  to  break 
their  vow  of  celibacy,  any  violation  of  that  vow  was  de- 
nounced by  the  doctors 3  of  the  Church  in  stern  language, 
and  was  visited  by  the  canons 4  of  the  Church  with  severe 
penalties.  Thus  the  Church  in  her  motherly  frankness  and 
plainness  of  speech  set  the  matter  clearly  before  the  eyes 
of  fervid  postulants,  and  doubtless  deterred  many  from  rashly 
taking  a  vow  of  celibacy. 

If  this  system  had  been  based  on  sound  foundations  of 
human  nature  and  Holy  Scripture,  it  must  be  confessed  to 
have  been  a  wise  one.  It  had  the  merit  of  logical  con- 
sistency. It  exhorted  virgins  not  to  take  a  vow  of  celibacy 
unless  they  felt  that  they  had  the  gift  to  keep  it.5  It  with- 
drew the  Virgins  of  the  Church  from  temptation,  it  supplied 
them  with  means  of  grace  to  resist  it,  and  it  deterred 
them  from  yielding  to  it  by  authoritative  alarms  and  solemn 
anathemas. 

But  although  the  system  was  thus  fenced  in  on  all  sides, 
it  was  not  successful.  It  seems  to  have  often  fostered 
spiritual  pride.6    The  lamentation  of  Fathers  of  the  Church 

9  See  S.  Basil,  Epitimia  Canonicarum,  ii.  530.  Concil.  Trullan 
Can.  41. 

1  Concil.  Carthag.  i.  3. 

2  S.  Ambrose,  de  Lapsu  Virginis,  cap.  7.  Council  of  Epaon,  Can.  38. 
Council  of  Rouen,  Can.  10. 

3  S.  Basil,  de  Virgin,  caps.  39,  40,  42.  S.  Ambrose,  de  Lapsu  Virg.  c.  5. 
S.  Epiphanius,  Haeres.  c.  61.    S.  Augustin,  de  bono  Viduit.  cap.  9. 

4  Concil.  Ancyran,  Can.  19.  Concil.  Turon.  i.  6.  Concil.  Venet. 
Can.  4.  Concil.  Valent.  i.  2.  Concil.  Matiscon  i.  Can.  12.  Thomas- 
sinus,  Eccl.  Disc.  torn.  iv.  p.  63. 

5  S.  Augustine,  de  bono  Viduit.  cap.  8,  "  Si  non  continent  nubant, 
antequam  continentiam  profiteantur." 

6  See  S.  Augustine,  de  sancta  Virginitate,  caps.  34,  44,  45.  The 


Failure  of  the  system. 


275 


on  cases  of  failure/  their  exhortations,  even  to  professed 
virgins,  to  marry  rather  than  to  live  the  lives  which  some  of 
them  were  tempted  to  do,8  and  the  frequent  iterations  of 
canonical  censures  on  the  breaches  of  the  vow  of  celibacy, 
seem  to  prove  that  the  taking  of  vows  of  celibacy  by  women 
on  any  other  terms  than  those  which  had  been  enunciated 
by  St.  Paul  (1  Tim.  v.  9 — 12),  and  had  been  accepted  by 
the  Primitive  Church,  was  dangerous  in  its  tendency,  and 
disastrous  in  its  results. 

And  now,  my  dear  Sir  George,  let  me  be  allowed  to  ask 
your  indulgence,  while  I  attempt  to  apply  these  statements 
to  the  subject  of  your  Report. 

And  first,  with  regard  to  the  terms  Sister  and  Sisterhood, 
in  that  Report,  and  as  now  used  in  the  English  Church. 

It  must  be  candidly  confessed,  that  these  words,  as  at 
present  employed  among  us,  do  not  correspond  to  anything 
known  to  the  Christian  Church  for  a  thousand  years.  I 
am  not  saying  that  those  persons  whom  they  represent  are 
the  worse  on  that  account.  Every  age  of  the  Church  knows 
its  own  needs,  and  must  endeavour  to  provide  for  them  by 
special  means,  adapted  to  their  peculiar  character  and 
circumstances. 

But  let  us  try  to  have  clear  ideas  on  the  subject ;  and  let 
us  not  confound  things  that  are  widely  different,  and  let  us 
not  hastily  apply  ancient  terms  and  ancient  rules  to  modern 
inventions. 

The  word  Sisterhood  has  no  correlative  in  the  terminology 
of  the  ancient  Greek  or  Latin  Church,  It  is  unknown  to 
both ;  it  would  not  be  possible  to  translate  it  by  any  word 

Council  of  Gangra,  a.d.  362,  gives  salutary  cautions  against  this  temper 
of  mind  (Canons  1,  4,  9),  and  against  the  tendency  to  Manicha;anism  which 
disparaged  Marriage.  The  wise  language  of  the  Bishops  assembled  in 
this  Council  deserves  careful  consideration  at  the  present  time. 

7  See  for  example  S.  Ambrose,  de  Lapsu  Virginis,  p.  323.  S.  Jerome, 
Epist.  xciii.  ad  Sabinianum  Lapsum,  p.  754. 

8  See  S.  Jerome,  ad  Demetriad,  Ep.  xcviii.  "  Sanctum  Virginum  pro- 
positum  quarundam  non  bene  agentium  nomen  infamat.  Quibus  aperte 
dicendum  est,  ut  aut  nubant,  si  se  non  possunt  continere,  ant  contineant 
si  nolunt  nubore."    See  also  S.  Epiphan.  Ha?re<.  (51. 

T  2 


276 


Miscellanies. 


used  by  either.  The  ancient  Church  had  its  Widows,  it  had 
its  Virgins,  it  had  its  Deaconesses,  but  it  had  110  Sisterhoods 
in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term. 

And  what  may  we  infer  from  this  ?  Not  that  Sisterhoods 
are  bad  things ;  not  that  they  may  not  be  very  excellent 
things ;  no,  far  from  it ;  but  that  it  is  unreasonable  to  apply 
ancient  regulations  to  them. 

Let  me  illustrate  my  meaning  by  a  pertinent  example  in 
a  very  grave  and  serious  matter. 

I  infer  from  your  Report  to  the  Lower  House  of  Convoca- 
tion, that,  in  some  English  Sisterhoods  the  Sisters  at  an 
early  age  are  allowed  to  take  voids  of  celibacy  of  perpetual 
obligation.9  This,  I  venture  to  think,  is  repugnant  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Apostolic  age,  as  seen  in  the  writings  of  St. 
Paul ;  and  it  is  not  consistent  with  that  of  the  next  age  of 
the  Church,  that  of  S.  Ignatius,  Tertullian,  and  S.  Cyprian; 
and  it  is  also  at  variance  even  with  the  precepts  and  practice 
of  the  most  earnest  advocates  of  celibacy,  S.  Ambrose,  S. 
Basil,  S.  Jerome,  and  S.  Augustine,  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries.  As  to  the  last-named,  let  me  explain  what  I 
mean. 

If  a  young  woman  in  our  Sisterhoods  were  never  ad- 
mitted to  take  a  vow,  and  to  be  veiled  by  a  Priest  of  the 
Church,  but  only  by  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese,  and  not 
even  by  the  Bishop,  except  after  careful  scrutiny  and 
examination ;  and  if,  after  she  had  taken  a  vow  of  celibacy, 
she  were  not  allowed  to  go  out  of  her  own  house,  even  to 
church,  except  under  most  careful  custody ;  or  if,  not  living 
at  home  but  in  the  house  of  the  Sisterhood,  she  were  denied 
all  intercourse  with  the  external  world,  except  in  going  to 
church,  and  even  that  under  watchful  guardianship ;  and 
if  her  friends  and  relatives  were  not  freely  admitted  to 
visit  her ;  if,  in  a  word,  she  were  carefully  guarded  in 
perfect  privacy  and  strict  seclusion,  against  all  inducement 
to  break  her  vow,  or  to  attract  others  by  the  graces  of  her 
person  and  character ;  and  if  the  Church  in  her  Synods 
had  warned  her  by  solemn  comminations  against  the 
breach  of  her  vow,  and  against  the  consequences  of  such 
9  "  The  final  Vows  are  in  some  cases  perpetual,"  Report,  p.  (5. 


English  Sisters  and  Sisterhoods. 


277 


violation,  then  there  would  be  indeed  some  analogy  between 
the  Virgins  of  the  age  of  S.  Ambrose,  S.  Jerome,  and  S. 
Augustine,  and  the  English  Sister  of  the  nineteenth  century; 
— but  not  otherwise. 

I  frankly  confess,  that  when  I  read  in  your  Report  that 
vows  of  perpetual  celibacy  are  allowed  and  encouraged  in 
some  English  Sisterhoods,  and  when  I  know  what  blessings 
the  Sisters  diffuse  by  the  English  liberty  of  their  holy  lives, 
in  nursing  the  sick  in  Hospitals,  and  in  the  homes  of  the 
poor  and  fever-stricken,  and  in  teaching  young  children 
in  schools,  and  in  other  labours  of  love  at  home  and  abroad, 
as  missionaries  of  the  blessed  Gospel,  by  their  influence  and 
example;  and  when  I  see  that  some  of  them  travel  by  rail- 
ways from  place  to  place,  and  even  present  themselves  at 
the  houses  of  strangers,  in  great  towns,  to  solicit  offerings 
for  their  Sisterhoods,  I  cannot  help  saying  to  myself,  What 
would  S.  Ambrose,  S.  Augustine,  and  S.  Jerome  have 
thought,  and  what  would  they  have  said  to  all  this  ?  What 
would  they,  who  sat  in  the  Synods  of  the  ancient  Church, 
have  thought  and  said,  if  they  were  told  at  the  same  time 
that  these  youthful  sisters,  so  free  and  so  attractive,  were 
under  vows  of  perpetual  celibacy  ? 

To  state  briefly  the  inferences  from  all  this.  If  our 
English  Sisters  are  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  Apostolic  age, 
let  them  not  be  allowed  to  take  vows  of  perpetual  celibacy 
till  the  age  specified  by  St.  Paul.  If  they  prefer  to  live, 
as  it  were,  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  centuries,  and  to  take  such 
vows  of  celibacy  when  they  are  young,  let  them  not  be 
allowed  to  go  forth  from  their  own  homes,  or  let  them  be 
shut  up  in  a  cloister.  But  let  them  not  do  what  your 
Report  says  that  some  of  them  are  doing,  that  is,  let  them 
not  take  vows  of  celibacy  at  an  early  age  and  yet  live  in 
public,  and  appeal  to  Catholic  Antiquity  as  an  authority  for 
what  they  do. 

I  have  written  thus  freely,  because  with  you  and  other 
members  of  your  Committee,  and  with  those  excellent  men 
who  addressed  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation  in  tho 
recent  debate  on  the  subject,  I  earnestly  pray  for  the 
prosperity  of  English  Sisterhoods,  and  because  I  am  sure 


Miscellanies. 


that  by  the  divine  blessing  they  will  prosper,  unless  they 
injure  and  destroy  themselves  by  ill-advised  rules  and 
indiscreet  practices,  which  cannot  plead  any  precedent 
from  any  age  of  the  Church  for  a  thousand  years  after 
Christ. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  advert  here  to  a  class  of  women  in 
the  ancient  Church  who  may  be  thought  to  bear  some 
resemblance  to  our  English  Sisters,  so  far  as  freedom  is 
concerned,  and  also  as  being  dedicated  by  a  Vow  of  Celibacy 
(I  am  not  speaking  of  the  Apostolic  age,  but  of  the  fourth 
century) — I  mean  Deaconesses.  These  were  consecrated 
by  a  solemn  service  to  their  work,  and  were  very  useful  as 
ministers  in  the  Christian  Church,  especially  in  the  in- 
struction of  women,  and  in  preparing  them  for  Baptism  and 
Confirmation,  and  in  teaching  of  children,  and  in  succouring 
the  sick  and  needy.1  But  they  did  not  live  in  communities 
or  sisterhoods.  It  is  remarkable  that  their  case  is  rather  a 
warning  than  an  example  to  us,  and  thus  it  may  be  useful  to 
us.  They  represented  an  attempt — such  as  is  now  made  by 
some  sisterhoods — to  reconcile  freedom  of  life  with  vows  of 
celibacy ;  and  the  experiment  failed.  After  a  fair  trial  the 
office  of  Deaconess  so  constituted  was  suppressed,  and 
canons  were  passed  against  its  continuance,  in  the  fifth  and 
sixth  centuries  in  the  Western  Church.2 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  an  order  of  Deaconesses  might 
not  be  constituted  on  primitive  Apostolic  principles,  and  do 
much  good;  I  believe  it  might.  Indeed,  the  experiment 
has  been  tried  iu  our  own  age  and  country  with  much 
success. 

I  should  be  chargeable  with  a  serious  omission  if  I  did 
not  here  refer  to  the  celebrated  institution  founded  by 
S.  Vincent  de  Paul  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 

1  See  the  authorities  in  Bingham,  Antiquities  of  the  Church,  book  ii. 
chap.  xxii.  1 — 13. 

'2  First  Council  of  Orange,  Can.  26,  a.d.  441,  and  Council  of  Epaon, 
Can.  21.  Second  Council  of  Orleans,  Can.  18,  a.d.  533.  It  failed  through 
human  frailty  not  able  to  bear  it,  "pro  couditionis  hujus  fragilitate," 
says  the  Council.    Cp.  Thomassinus,  Disciplin.  Eccl.  vol.  x.  p.  78. 


"  Sisters  of  Charity. 


century  (a.d.  1033)  ;  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  now  numbering 
18,000  members,  of  whom  14,000  are  natives  of  France.3 

These  Sisters  (like  our  English  Sisters)  enjoy  much 
liberty.  In  the  words  of  their  saintly  founder,  "  Their  only 
monastery  is  the  house  of  the  sick,  their  chapel  is  the  parish 
church,  their  cloister  is  the  street  of  the  city  or  the  ward  of 
the  hospital,  their  seclusion  is  obedience,  their  grille  is  the 
fear  of  God,  their  veil  is  holy  modesty  and  meekness." 

But  let  us  consider  what  their  constitution  is.  A  good 
account  of  it  is  given  by  M.  Collet  in  his  interesting  life  of 
S.  Vincent  de  Paid,  published  at  Paris  m  1818  (p.  42),  who 
states  that  the  Sisters  take  no  vow  at  all  till  after  five  years' 
probation ;  and  then  they  are  allowed  to  take  a  vow  for  a 
year ;  and  in  an  interesting  volume,4  published  in  London 
in  1854,  it  is  stated  (p.  94),  in  the  history  of  this  celebrated 
Sisterhood,  that  "  No  external  austerities  were  required, 
and  no  Vows  were  taken  beyond  a  year."  Again  (p.  98), 
"  The  Sisters  of  S.  Vincent  de  Paul  usually  have  no  private 
means ;  they  live  with  the  poor  whom  they  serve ;  they 
receive  a  small  annual  sum  (12Z.  or  15Z.)  from  the  Bureau 
de  Bienfaisance  of  any  town  in  France  that  may  wish  for 
their  services,  or  a  small  sum  is  granted  them  from  the 
Mother-house.  After  admission  they  spend  six  months  in 
their  own  dress,  and  then  adopt  that  of  the  Order,  and  after 
five  years'  probation  they  are  allowed  to  take  the  simple 
Vows,  which  are  only  for  one  year,  and  are  annually  renewed 

on  March  2bth  From  time  to  time  the  Sisters 

return  to  the  seminary  to  gain  spiritual  strength  by  a 
retreat  of  eight  days  for  spiritual  exercise  of  prayer  and 
doctrinal  instructions." 

"Their  constitution  and  rules  were,  in  1847,  exactly  the 
same  as  in  St.  Vincent's  time'"  (p.  102).  The  "  Filles  de 
St.  Genevieve"  (founded  1636)  take  no  Vows"  (p.  106). 
The  Order,  therefore,  of  S.  Vincent  de  Paul  by  its  per- 
manence, prosperity,  and  beneficent  influence  seems  to 
supply  direction  and  encouragement  to  us. 

Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  other  Roman  Catholic 

3  See  M.  Guizot,  Histoire  de  France,  tome  iv.  p.  15. 

4  Entitled  "  Hospitals  and  Sisterliooods."    London  :  Murray,  1854- 


Miscellanies. 


Sisterhoods,  conducted  on  a  much  stricter  plan,  and  which 
may  exist  more  easily  in  conjunction  with  a  clergy  bound 
to  celibacy,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  England 
would  suffer  much,  socially,  morally,  and  spiritually,  if  she 
were  to  purchase  such  institutions,  with  their  vows  of 
perpetual  celibacy,  at  the  cost  of  her  own  Sisters  of  Mercy 
and  Charity,  namely,  the  wives  and  daughters  of  her 
Parochial  Clergy  in  all  parts  of  the  land. 

I  do  not  see  in  the  Report  any  refereuce  to  other  Vows, 
such  as  Vows  of  Obedience  and  Poverty,  which  are  taken  in 
some  religious  communities ;  nor  do  I  know  on  what  terms 
they  are  proposed  and  taken  in  English  Sisterhoods. 

But  it  may  be  well  to  observe,  that,  according  to  the  Will 
and  Word  of  God,  no  Vow  can  be  rightly  imposed  or  safely 
taken,  which  interferes  with  or  contravenes  any  religious 
and  moral  obligation  by  which  the  person  taking  the  Vow 
was  previously  bound. 

And  in  the  present  case  no  Vow  of  Obedience  to  a 
Superior  of  a  Sisterhood  can  be  defended  which  militates 
against  any  clear  duty  to  God,  or  to  Parents. 

And  no  Vow  of  Poverty  can  be  justified,  which  interferes 
with  the  duties  of  piety  to  God  (such  as  almsgiving)  or  to 
Parents.  Such  Vows  are  condemned  by  our  Lord  (Matt, 
xv.  5.  Mark  vii.  11),  and  by  St.  Paul  (1  Tim.  v.  8).  On 
this  subject  let  me  refer  to  the  excellent  remarks  of  Bishop 
Sanderson  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Obligation  of  an  Oath, 
and  in  his  Cases  of  Conscience;  especially  Case  iv.  and 
Case  viii.5 

It  may  perhaps  be  alleged  here,  that  the  foregoing  obser- 
vations are  not  of  a  constructive  character,  and  are  not 
suggestive  of  measures  to  be  adopted  for  the  regulation  of 
existing  Sisterhoods. 

I  anticipate  this  objection ;  but  let  me  say  also  that  if  I 
entered  on  this  part  of  the  subject,  I  might  be  encroaching 

5  The  "Lectures  "  will  be  found  in  vol.  iv.,  the  "  Cases  of  Conscience  " 
in  vol.  v.  of  Bishop  Jacobson's  edition  of  Sanderson's  Works.  Oxford, 
1851. 


Practical  suggestions  on  Sisterhoods.  281 


on  the  functions  of  the  Joint  Committee  which  has  now 
been  appointed  for  this  purpose.  At  the  risk,  however,  of 
appearing  to  do  so,  I  would  now  briefly  offer  a  few  practical 
suggestions  : — 

(1.)  That  the  general  fundamental  principles  for  the 
regulation  of  Sisterhoods  should  not  be  laid  down  by  any 
Diocesan  authority,  but  by  the  Provincial  Synods  of  the 
Church. 

(2.)  That  the  application  of  those  regulations  in  any 
Diocese  should  be  entrusted  to  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese. 

(3.)  That  no  vows  of  perpetual  celibacy  should  be  im- 
posed; and  that  St.  Paul's  command  (1  Tim.  v.  9,  see  above, 
page  269)  be  complied  with. 

(4.)  That  a  promise  (not  a  Vow 6)  of  self-dedication  to 
the  work  might  be  made,  but  ought  to  be  terminable,  and 
not  be  extended  beyond  two  or  three  years  ;  and  be  renew- 
able from  time  to  time.  And  this  being  not  a  Vow  to  God, 
but  a  promise  to  a  human  authority,  might,  if  circumstances 
so  require,  be  relaxed  by  that  authority. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  a  free,  life-long 
self-dedication  (not,  however,  under  a  Vow),  to  the  work 
of  a  Sister.  Such  voluntary  consecration  gives  strength, 
and  stability  to  the  Sisterhood.  But  there  is  also  much 
to  be  urged  in  behalf  of  terminable  engagements.  There 
can  be  no  better  training  for  a  wife  and  a  mother  than 
the  work  of  a  Sister,  nursing  in  a  hospital,  or  teaching 
in  a  good  school.  In  one  Sisterhood  in  London  (St.  John's) 
there  have  been  and  are  a  considerable  number  of  "  Lady 
Pupils,"  and  very  useful  they  are  and  will  be.  And  it 
seems  desirable  for  some  young  women,  especially  the 
daughters  of  the  clergy,  to  have  the  advantage  of  two  or 
three  years'  training  as  Sisters  in  a  hospital,  or  in  some 
well-ordered  school,  under  efficient  and  skilful  teachers. 

(5.)  That  no  one  should  be  allowed  to  take  any  Vow 
except  in  the  presence  of  the  Bishop,  and  with  solemn 
prayer  and  benediction  from  him. 

(6.)  That  no  Books  of  Devotion  should  be  used  in  a 

11  On  the  difference  between  a  Vow  and  a  Promise,  see  Bishop  San- 
derson, de  Juram.  Oblig.  lecture  vii. 


282  Miscellanies. 


Sisterhood  without  the  knowledge  and  approval  of  the 
Bishop. 

(7.)  That  all  admissions  to  the  Sisterhood  should  be  with 
a  religious  service  and  celebration  of  the  Holy  Communion, 
and  in  the  presence  of  the  Bishop. 

(8.)  That  great  care  should  be  taken  in  the  appointment 
of  the  Chaplaiu  of  the  Sisterhood.  More  will  depend  for 
success  on  the  personal  zeal,  faith,  wisdom,  and  holiness  of 
those  who  are  engaged  in  the  work,  and  of  those  laymen 
who  are  officially  connected  with  it  (whether  Members  of 
Council  or  others)  than  in  any  abstract  regulations. 

And  now,  my  dear  Sir  George,  before  I  bring  these 
remarks  to  a  close,  may  I  say  something  on  the  case  of 
Sisters  who  in  early  years  have  taken  a  Vow  of  Celibacy, 
and  may  perhaps  feel  that  they  have  been  entangled  by 
them,  without  fully  counting  the  cost. 

Let  it  then  be  remembered  here  that — 

(1.)  A  Vow  is  a  solemn  act  of  religious  worship  done  to 
Almighty  God.7  A  Vow  ought  never  to  be  taken  except 
with  a  feeling  of  solemn  awe,  inspired  by  a  sense  of  His 
omnipresence,  omniscience,  and  majesty ;  a  consideration  (let 
me  observe)  which  ought  to  deter  persons  from  hastily 
making  vows  of  total  abstinence,  and,  still  more,  from 
imposing  them  on  others. 

(2.)  The  matter  of  a  Vow  ought  to  be  something  good, 
pious,  charitable,  and  holy.  Almighty  God,  in  Holy 
Scripture,  warns  men  against  making  rash  vows;  at  the 
same  time  He  commands  them  to  keep  the  vows  which  they 
have  made  (Eccles.  v.  4 — 6) ;  unless  they  were  not  free  to 
make  them  (Numb.  xxx.  3  —  7.  Deut.  xxiii.  21),  and  unless 
the  vows  are  contrary  to  some  moral  obligation  by  which 
they  were  previously  bound.8 

(3.)  The  purpose  of  a  life  of  celibacy  in  dependence  on 
God's  grace,  and  for  the  promoting  His  glory  and  the  good 

7  See  Bishop  Sanderson,  de  Juramenti  Obligatione,  Prselect.  vii.  "Case 
of  unlawful  love,"  p.  13.    His  "  Case  of  a  Rash  Vow,"  p.  118. 

8  Cp.  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor,  Ductor  Dubituntium,  book  iii.  chap.  v. 
rule  viii. 


Cautious  as  to  Vows — the  Nazarite  Vow.  283 


of  His  Church,  is  holy  and  commendable;  but  it  is  not  law- 
ful to  impose  a  Vow  of  Celibacy  on  any,  especially  on  young 
persons.    (1  Tim.  iv.  3 ;  v.  9.    1  Cor.  vii.  2.) 

(4.)  It  is  a  rash  thing  to  take  such  a  vow.  Bishop  Taylor's 
words  deserve  careful  attention  : 9 — "  That  man  vows  foolishly 
that  binds  himself  for  ever  to  the  profession  of  what  he  may 
afterwards  find  not  to  be  useful,  or  not  profitable ;  but  of 
some  danger  or  of  no  necessity."  He  recommends  that  vows 
should  rather  be  made  for  the  performance  of  special  acts, 
than  for  continuance  in  a  permanent  state. 

Let  me  here  observe  in  passing,  that  some  have  en- 
deavoured to  justify  the  taking  of  a  Vow  of  celibacy  by 
young  persons,  and  even  the  imposition  of  it  upon  them,  by 
examples  of  vows  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  the  Nazarite 
Vow  (Numb,  vi.),  or  the  case  of  the  Rechabites  (Jer.  xxxv.), 
or  the  Vow  of  Marriage  under  the  Gospel,  or  the  Vow  at 
Ordination,  or  the  Baptismal  Vow. 

But  the  cases  are  by  no  means  similar. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  Vow  of  the  Nazarite  was  one 
of  Divine  institution  (Numb,  vi.),  it  was  not  imposed  on  any 
one,  and  as  far  as  appears  from  Scripture,  it  was  not  of  per- 
petual obligation ;  and  God,  who  instituted  it,  would  endue 
those  whom  He  directed  to  take  it,  with  strength  to  keep  it. 
Besides  the  matter  of  it  was  in  no  way  contrariant  to  human 
nature,  which  is  God's  work.  There  was  also  a  provision 
for  the  contingency  of  a  breach  of  it,  by  way  of  dispensation 
(Numb.  vi.  12). 

But  a  Vow  of  Perpetual  Celibacy  has  no  warrant  from 
God ;  rather  it  is  repugnant  to  His  will  as  manifested  in 
nature  and  revealed  in  Scripture,  and  cannot  look  with 
assurance  lor  the  help  of  His  grace  to  keep  it. 

The  abstinence  of  the  Rechabites  (Jer.  xxxv.)  was  no 
consequence  of  any  Vow.  Jonadab,  the  son  of  Rechab,  is 
not  praised  or  approved  for  laying  the  commands  he  did  on 
his  descendants  (rather  he  was  censurable  for  doing  so),  but 
they  are  commended  for  showing  reverence  to  God,  Whose 

9  Cp.  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor,  Holy  Living,  sect,  vii.,  "  Cautions  for 
making  Vows,"  vol.  iv.  p.  225,  ed.  Ileber,  1828. 


284 


Miscellanies. 


command  it  is  that  Parents  slioukl  be  obeyed,  and  for  show- 
ing love  and  honour  to  their  father,  and  for  their  obedience 
to  his  command,  although  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the 
command  ought  to  have  been  given. 

In  the  Gospel  dispensation,  Marriage  has  become  "  a  mag- 
num sacramentum,"  a  great  mystery  (Eph.  v.  32),  and  the 
marriage  vow  is  approved  by  God  as  being  a  solemn  promise 
in  His  sight  to  keep  that  troth  which  is  necessary  for  the 
well-being  of  that  estate  which  was  instituted  by  Him  in 
Paradise,  and  has  been  consecrated  by  Christ.  And  (to  those 
who  pray  for  it)  grace  is  given  by  Him  to  keep  that  vow. 

In  like  manner  the  Episcopate,  Priesthood,  and  Diaconate 
are  holy  states  of  life,  instituted  by  God  Himself,  for  His 
glory,  and  the  good  of  His  Church ;  and  they  who  are 
admitted  to  those  holy  states  may  expect  grace  from  Him 
to  help  them  to  keep  the  Vows  which  they  take  at  their 
admission  to  them ;  just  as  all  baptized  persons  may  expect 
God's  grace,  if  they  pray  for  it,  to  keep  the  vows  they  made 
when  they  were  admitted  into  Christ's  Church  by  the  Holy 
Sacrament  of  Baptism,  instituted  by  Him.  But  these  things 
cannot  be  rightly  predicated  concerning  a  Vow  of  Celibacy. 
As  we  have  seen,  Celibacy  is  not  a  state  appointed  to  any 
one  by  command  of  God ;  and  to  impose  on  any  one  a  Vow 
of  celibacy,  and  to  take  a  Vow  of  perpetual  celibacy,  in  early 
life,  is  repugnant  to  His  Will  and  Word. 

(5.)  But  it  does  not  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence 
that,  because  a  Vow  ought  not  to  have  been  imposed  or 
taken,  it  ought  not  to  be  kept. 

If  indeed  it  be  a  Vow  to  do  what  is  evil,  or  may  prove  to 
be  evil,  like  the  vow  of  Micah's  mother  to  make  a  molten 
image  (Judges  xvii.  3),  or  like  the  vow  of  David  to  kill 
Nabal  (1  Sam.  xxv.  22),  or  like  the  promise  of  Solomon  not 
to  deny  his  mother  anything  that  she  might  ask  (1  Kings 
ii.  19 — 25),  or  like  the  vow  of  the  Israelitish  women  in 
Egypt  to  burn  incense  to  the  queen  of  heaven  (Jer.  xliv.  25), 
or  like  the  oath  of  Herod  to  give  the  daughter  of  Herodias 
whatever  she  might  desire  (Matt.  xiv.  7 — 8),  or  of  the  Jews 
to  kill  Paul  (Acts  xxiii.  12 — 15),  or  in  later  days  in  our  own 


On  Relaxation  of  Vows. 


country  the  vow  of  the  Countess  of  Shrewsbury  to  answer 
no  questions  put  to  her  in  the  Star  Chamber ;  1  or  like  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant  which  the  English  Parliament, 
at  the  Restoration,  in  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  required  men 
to  abjure — in  such  cases  the  vow  ought  never  to  have  been 
made,  and  ought  not  to  be  kept.  "  Dissolve  vinculum  iui- 
quitatis,"  "  Rei  illicitae  nulla  obligatio,"  are  sound  maxims. 

But  though  a  Vow  of  Celibacy  is  a  rash  thing,  celibacy 
itself  is  not  an  evil  thing,  it  is  rather  represented  in  Scripture 
as  a  good  thing ;  though  there  may  have  been  sin  in  taking 
the  Vow  of  Celibacy,  still,  if  it  has  been  taken,  ought  it  not 
to  be  kept  ?  And  to  apply  this  to  the  cases  in  point,  Ought 
a  Vow  of  Celibacy,  taken  in  an  English  Sisterhood,  as  now 
constituted,  to  be  regarded  as  of  perpetual  obligation  ? 

This  is  a  difficult  question,  and  depends  much  on  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case. 

If  the  vow  has  been  made,  according  to  the  canons  of  the 
Ancient  Church,2  that  is  to  say  in  the  presence,  not  of  a 
Pried,  but  of  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese,  and  with  his  full 
knowledge  and  sanction,  and  after  careful  examination  by 
him,  and  with  solemn  previous  warning  of  the  consequences 
of  breaking  it ;  and  if,  according  to  the  canons  of  the  Church, 
the  person  taking  the  Vow  has  been  carefully  shielded 
against  temptations  to  break  it,  by  religious  privacy  and 
seclusion,  then  the  obligation  to  keep  it  seems  to  become 
more  stringent. 

But  if  these  rules  of  the  ancient  Church  have  not  been 
observed,  then,  in  the  words  of  St.  Basil,  the  fault  of  the 
breach  is  not  so  much  with  the  breaker  of  the  vow,  as  with 
the  breakers  3  of  the  laws  of  the  Church  who  have  imposed 
the  vow. 

1  See  the  case  which  gave  rise  to  the  excellent  speech  of  Bishop 
Andrewes  "  concerning  Vows,"  in  his  Opuscula,  p.  79;  he  lays  down  as 
an  axiom,  p.  85,  "Non  debet  voveri  Deo,  quod  displicet  Deo  ;  quod  sibi 
persolvi  non  vult,  voveri  Deus  non  vult." 

2  See  above,  p.  273. 

3  See  above,  p.  272.  And  in  a  similar  tone  the  Emperor  Leo,  in 
Theodos.  Novell.  8,  •' Neque  enim  sacrilega  judicanda  est,  qua;  se  hoc 
ante  noluisse,  aut  certe  non  posse  complere,  appetiti  conjugii  hon estate 
prodiderit." 


286 


Miscellanies. 


But  as  it  seems  to  me  (I  speak  with  great  diffidence)  no 
general  rule  can  be  given ;  but  each  case  must  be  considered 
by  itself ;  and  the  question  ought  not  to  be  determined  by 
the  person  or  persons  principally  concerned,  who  may  be 
swayed  by  private  bias,  but  by  their  Spiritual  Superior,  who 
would,  I  suppose,  be  guided  in  his  decision  by  the  judicious 
words  of  Bishop  Sanderson,4  "  An  Oath  cannot  be  remitted 
without  the  consent  of  all  parties ;  but  the  case  of  a  Vow  is 
not  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  an  Oath.  In  a  Vow,  since 
it  is  made  to  God  alone,  some  liberty  may  perhaps  be 
granted  to  the  person  who  has  taken  it,  of  changing  the  same 
into  another  which  may  be  evidently  better,  and  more  accept- 
able unto  God,  there  being  nothing  in  this  change  that  is 
injurious  to  a  third  person." 

But  it  will  be  safer  to  refer  the  matter  to  a  wise,  learned, 
and  holy  spiritual  guide ;  and  in  no  case  ought  a  Vow,  how- 
ever rash,  to  be  loosed  by  dispensation,  without  penitential 
sorrow  and  humiliation  on  the  part  of  the  person  who  has 
taken  it. 

Heartily  wishing  you  success  in  your  endeavours  on  behalf 
of  the  Sisterhoods  of  the  Church  of  England, 
I  am,  my  dear  Sir  George, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

C.  Lincoln. 

RlSEHOLME,  LlNCOLX. 

June  1st,  1878. 


P.S. — Since  this  letter  was  written  some  remarks  have 
been  made  upon  it  in  a  pamphlet  entitled,  "  Are  Vows  of 
Celibacy  in  early  life  inconsistent  with  the  Word  of  God  ?  " 
by  a  person  whose  name  cannot  be  mentioned  by  me 
without  feelings  of  respect — the  Rev.  Canon  Carter,  Rector 
of  Clewer. 

I  do  not  find  anything  in  those  remarks  to  induce  me  to 

4  De  Obligatione  Juramenti,  Praeleet.  vii.  5.  Some  directions  as  to  the 
dispensation  of  Laws  may  be  seen  in  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor's  Ductor 
Dubitantium,  book  iii.  chap.  vi. 


The  Rev.  Canon  Carter  s  enquiry.  287 

make  any  alterations  in  my  letter.  Canon  Carter  seems  to 
suppose  that  the  widows  mentioned  in  1  Tim.  v.  9  were  alms- 
women,  and  that  St.  Paul's  directions  "evidently  refer  to 
the  widow's  pecuniary  support,  which  is  thus  shown  to  be 
the  main  object  in  view  "  (p.  10).  He  does  not  indeed  deny 
that  she  was  bound  to  render  service  to  the  Church. 

But  it  seems  to  me  to  be  clear,  from  the  context,  that  St. 
Paul  is  speaking  of  reception  of  widows  by  the  Church  after 
a  vow  of  self-dedication  to  its  service.  His  words  to  the 
Bishop  of  Bphesus,  St.  Timothy,  are  (1  Tim.  v.  9)  :  "Let 
not  a  widow  be  taken  into  the  number  (let  her  not  be 
enrolled,  //,?)  KaraX^eadw) ,  under  threescore  years  old." 
....  And  what  follows  ?  "  But  younger  widows  refuse, 
for  when  they  have  begun  to  wax  wanton  against  Christ, 
they  desire  to  marry  (ya/j.elv  6e\ovcn),  having  damnation, 
because  they  have  cast  off  their  first  faith,"  or  plighted 
troth  to  Christ — "  I  will,  therefore,  that  younger  women 
marry."  Evidently  the  elder  widows  (not  under  threescore) 
are  contrasted  with  the  younger.  It  is  a  question  of  age. 
The  elder  (not  under  sixty  years  of  age)  may  be  placed  on 
the  roll  of  the  Church,  and  may  be  permitted  to  make  a 
vow  of  permanent  self-dedication.  And  why  ?  because,  on 
account  of  their  age,  they  would  not  be  like  the  younger, 
"  who  wish  to  marry,"  and  break  their  vow  of  celibacy, 
and  incur  censure  as  untrue  to  Christ ;  and  who,  there- 
fore, ought  not  to  be  admitted  to  take  a  vow  of  perpetual 
celibacy. 

If  it  had  been  a  question  of  the  enrolment  of  alms-women 
by  the  Church,  the  Marriage  of  such  women  would  not  have 
been  objectionable,  but  rather  have  been  desirable,  inasmuch 
as  the  burden  of  maintaining  them  would  have  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  Church  to  their  husbands. 

I  therefore  still  adhere  to  my  opinion,  and  agree  with  the 
best  commentators  (such  as  S.  Jerome,  S.  Chrysostom, 
Epiphanius,  and  others  quoted  by  Cornelius  a  Lapide ;  and 
with  Chemnitius,  Examen  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  viii.  de 
Ccelibatu,  cap.  ix.),  that  St.  Paul  is  speaking  of  an  enrol- 
ment of  a  widow  in  the  service  of  the  Church  by  a  vow  of 
celibacy ;  see  above,  pp.  269,  270. 


288 


Miscellanies. 


I  also  argue  (with  the  best  expositors)  that,  if  St.  Paul 
would  not  have  allowed  a  widow  to  be  received  by  the 
Church  with  a  vow  of  celibacy,  under  sixty  years  of  age,  he 
would  uot  have  sanctioned  the  reception  of  women  "  in  early 
age  "  by  a  vow  of  celibacy,  which  Canon  Carter  approves, 
and  ;ifhrins  to  be  agreeable  to  God's  Word. 

Mr.  Carter  disclaims  any  wish  to  impose  vows  of  celibacy 
(p.  4);  he  disapproves  such  a  proceeding.  But  may  I  be 
allowed  to  ask,  whether  there  is  not  something  like  a  moral 
pressure  and  coercion  exercised  on  the  minds  of  the  Sisters 
in  some  Sisterhoods,  by  eulogizing  celibacy  as  a  far  higher 
spiritual  state  than  marriage,  and  by  disparaging  marriage 
in  comparison  with  it,  and  by  representing  a  Sister  who  has 
married  as  having  fallen  from  a  higher  state  to  a  lower  con- 
dition, and  as  almost  under  a  ban  ? 

Canon  Carter  also  contends  that  a  dedication  contemplated 
by  a  young  woman  was  in  fact  regarded  in  ancient  times  as 
tantamount  to  a  vow  (p.  18)  ;  and  again  (p.  24)  he  says,  that 
"  the  dedication  to  a  state  of  celibacy,  whether  expressed  or 
implied,  or  however  expressed,  was  regarded  as  tantamount 
to  a  vow." 

He  considers  the  purpose  of  celibacy  as  equivalent  to  a 
vow.  I  cannot  agree  with  him  in  this.  A  young  woman  of 
ardent  temperament,  after  bearing  a  stirring  address  from 
some  eloquent  preacher  speaking  of  the  "  higher  life,"  and 
dwelling  on  the  merit  of  celibacy,  may  not  unnaturally  feel 
a  desire,  and  entertain  a  design,  of  a  single  life.  But  is  this 
"  tantamount  to  a  vow  "  ?  A  vow  is  a  very  solemn  thing ; 
it  is  an  act  of  worship  of  God  ;  and  when  it  has  been  made, 
it  cannot  lightly  be  unmade. 

Holy  Scripture  says  (Num.  xxx.  3),  "If  a  man  vow  a 
vow  unto  the  Lord,  he  shall  do  according  to  all  that  pro- 
ceedeth  out  of  his  mouth."  And  again  (Deut.  xxiii.  21 — 
23),  "When  thou  shalt  vow  unto  the  Lord  thy  God,  thou 
shaft  not  slack  to  pay  it ;  for  the  Lord  thy  God  will  surely 
require  it  of  thee  ;  and  it  would  be  sin  in  thee.  That  which 
is  gone  out  of  thy  lips  thou  shalt  keep  and  perform."  And 
therefore  the  wise  man  says  (Eccl.  v.  4,  5),  "When  thou 
vowest  a  vow  unto  God,  defer  not  to  pay  it ;  for  he  hath  no 


Conclusion. 


289 


pleasure  in  fools ;  pay  that  which  thou  hast  vowed.  Better 
it  is  that  thou  shouldst  not  vow,  than  that  thou  shouldst 
vow  and  not  pay." 

But  an  intention  is  a  very  different  thing.  It  may  be 
even  right  to  alter  it  under  a  change  of  circumstances ;  and 
therefore,  in  words  quoted  above  (p.  270),  St.  Cyprian  dis- 
tinguishes between  a  vow  of  celibacy  and  a  purpose  of  single 
life.  A  young  woman  may  entertain  a  desire,  and  form  a 
design,  of  celibacy,  under  certain  circumstances.  But  are 
the  desire  and  the  design,  under  those  circumstances,  to  be 
regarded  as  having  irrevocably  fixed  her  condition  for  the 
future,  and  as  having  indissolubly  rivetted  her  in  celibacy 
for  the  rest  of  her  life,  however  her  circumstances  may 
change,  which  are  beyond  her  cognizance  and  control,  and 
are  known  only  to  God,  and  which  are  in  His  hands  ? 
Would  not  this  be  to  say  that  she  has  been  arrogating  to 
herself  His  attributes  ?  And  if  under  a  change  of  circum- 
stances, which  are  God's  dealings  with  her,  she  modifies  her 
desires,  and  shapes  afresh  her  designs,  is  she  to  be  regarded 
as  guilty  of  the  sin  of  breaking  a  vow,  and  as  having  incurred 
the  penalties  which  Holy  Scripture  pronounces  against  those 
who  commit  that  sin  ?  Surely  this  would  be  a  hard  saying; 
and  it  is  much  to  be  wished  that  the  excellent  Author  of 
the  pamphlet  before  us  may  be  induced  to  reconsider  it. 


vol.  III. 


U 


ON  ENGLISH  CATHEDRALS. 


In  the  year  1873  the  Statutes  of  Lincoln  Cathedral  were 
printed  by  me  (see  below,  p.  302). 

That  Code,  called  "  Novum  Registrum/'  is  of  great  value 
and  interest,  inasmuch  as  Lincoln  Cathedral  is  one  of  the 
best  existing  types  of  the  English  Cathedrals  of  the  old 
foundation,  and,  inasmuch  as  the  Code  of  Statutes  remains 
unaltered  to  the  present  day.  The  following  is  the  preface 
to  this  first  printed  edition. 

Christophorus,  divina  permissione  Episcopus  Lincolniensis, 
dilectis  in  Christo,  Decano,  Prsecentori,  Cancellario,  Sub- 
decano,  Archidiaconis,  Canonicis,  et  Vicariis  Ecclesias  beatee 
Virginis  Marias  Lincolniensis,  salutem,  gratiam,  et  bene- 
dictionem. 

Damus  vobis  in  manus  Statuta  Ecclesias  nostras  Cathe- 
dralis,  nunc  primum  in  lucem  edita.  Ut  ea  typis  excudenda 
arbitraremur,  variae  nos  impulerunt  rationes.  Cum  primum 
in  istius  Ecclesias  consortium  asciti  sumus,  in  qua  sanctissimis 
pietatis  et  caritatis  nexibus  in  unum  corpus  consociamur, 
solenni  sponsione  professi  sumus,  nos  ea  quae  in  hoc  libro 
continentur  pro  virili  parte  fideliter  obseiwaturos,  et  aliis 
observanda  procuraturos.  Cui  quidem  pollicitation!  satisfieri 
nequit,  nisi  quae  in  hoc  volumine  comprehensa  sunt,  luculenter 
perspecta  et  explorata  habeamus. 

Multa  sane  in  eo  reperiri  non  diffetemur,  quae  vel  annorum 
decursu  in  desuetudinem  abierunt,  vel  Reipublicae  legibus 
abrogata  sunt,  vel  puriore  fide  et  cultu  divino  illucescente 
evanuerunt.  Ad  hasc  opere  exequenda  neminem  obligari 
satis  per  se  liquet. 

Sed  his,  uti  par  est,  praetermissis,  plurima  sane  alia  in 
hoc  legum  nostrarum  Codice  supersunt,  quae  sancte  et 


Preface  to  Lincoln  Cathedral  Statutes .  291 


sapienter  a  majoribus  nostris  provisa,  et  legitima  auctoritate 
stabilita,  et  unanimi  consensu  approbata,  firma  manent  et 
inconcussa.  Nemo,  ut  opinor,  infitiabitur,  haoc  ab  omnibus 
perpendi  et  observari  debere,  qui,  in  Ecclesia3  nostra? 
societatem  recepti,  sesejura  ejus  et  laudabiles  consuetudines 
tuituros  esse  fidem  dederunt.  Hasc  igitur  ut  nobis  universis 
innotescant  magnopere  est  expetendum. 

Accessit  alia  res  non  levis  momenti,  propter  quam 
institutorum  nostrorum  notitiam  latius  divulgari  cuperemus. 
Nemiuem  fere  latet,  in  bisce  prassertim  temporibus,  rerum 
novarum  studiosis,non  paucos  reperiri,  qui  ultro  ad  Ecclesias 
Anglian  Cathedrales  refingendas  et  reformandas  mira 
alacritate  advolant,  et  qui  hoc  tarn  grande  et  tam  arduum 
propositum  adoriuntur  tanquam  rem  extemporanea  quadam 
facilitate  et  tumultuaria  opera  profligandam ;  et  ne  levi 
quidem  cognitione  argumenti,  quod  adeo  prompte  tractaturi 
sunt,  imbuti  et  praspai'ati. 

Quorum  quidem  prasfervidis  ingeniis  ut  aliquod  tempera- 
mentum  adhibeamus,  et  ut  remoram  quandam  atque  sufflamen 
prceproperas  eorum  festinationi  admoveamus,  pristinam 
Ecclesia)  nostras  Lincolniensis  imaginem  oculis  et  animis 
hominum  reprassentandam  censuimus,  quae  per  octingentos 
jam  fere  annos  inter  splendidissima  Anglia)  lumina  summa 
cum  laude  inclaruit,  et  omnium  bonorum  venerationem  in 
se  conciliavit.  Id  quoque  faciendum  hoc  fine  arbitrabamur, 
ut  alii  multi,  qui  Ecclesiam  nostram  debita  pietate  et 
reverentia  prosequuntur,  nova  vetustis  prudenter  accommo- 
dantes  et  suaviter  attemperantes,  earn  majore  vigore 
corroborare,  ampliore  forma  dilatare,  et  venustiore  gratia 
illustrare,  callerent.  Nos  etiam  ipsi,  filii  in  Cliristo  dilecti, 
qui  in  unam  Christi  familiam  arctissimis  amoris  vinculis 
congregamur,  et  qui  Ecclesia?  nostras  Catbedralis  bonorem, 
splendorem,  unitatem,  efficacitatem,  tanquam  nobilissimam 
et  sanctissimam  haereditatem  nobis  ab  antecessoribus  nostris 
concreditam  accepimus,  non  ut  pigra  earn  socordia  squalere 
sinamus,  vel  prodiga  effusione  dilapidari,  sed  ut  assiduo 
labore  et  indefessa  vigilantia  excolamus  et  amplificemus,  si 
in  leges  nostras,  in  hoc  libro  promulgatas,  tanquam  in  vivum 

u  2 


292 


Miscellanies. 


quoddam  speculum  attenti  intuemur,  nosrnet  ipsos  aiuplis- 
simis  facultatibus  prasditos  et  instructos  recognoscemus,  ad 
ea  quae  in  nostris  institutis  caduca  sint  instauranda,  et  ad  ea 
quas  lapsa  sint  erigenda;  ad  manca  supplenda,  ad  erronea 
eniendanda,  ad  niutila  resarcienda,  ad  obscura  illustranda, 
ad  debilia  confirmanda,  ad  angusta  expandenda  et  evolvenda ; 
denique  ad  castera,  quibus  opus  sit,  nostris  ipsoruni  manibus 
sponte  et  libere  perficienda. 

Quo  quidem  proposito  quid  excogitari  potest  gloriosius, 
quid  honorabilius,  quid  religiosius  ?  Macti  igitur,  viri 
egregii;  ad  hoc  opus  nobilissimum  nosmet  ipsos  accingainus, 
et  Deum  Optimum  Maximum  enixe  apprecemur,  ut  conati- 
bus  nostris  in  honorem  Ejus  et  Ecclesias  emolumentum, 
uti  sperainus,  redundaturis  faveat,  obsecundet,  et  opituletur. 

Anteeessorum  nostrorum  vestigiis  insistentes  Yisita- 
tionem  Ecclesias  nostras  CathedraUs  habituri,  Deo  annuente, 
et  vobis  adjuvantibus,  mensis  Aprilis  proxime  insequentis 
die  XXTX"0,  hunc  interea  librum  vobis  sedulo  versandum 
corumendamus,  ut  ad  normam  institutionum  a  patribus 
nostris  sancitarum  consilia  nostra  dirigamus  et  conformemus, 
et  ut  ea,  quae  a  nobis  una  congregatis  deliberatione  seria 
maturata  fuerint,  concordi  affectu  exequamur. 

Eestat  ut  gratias  ex  animo  agamus  fraternitatis  vestras 
viris  primariis,  Decano,  et  Canonicis  residentiariis,  qui 
Codicum  duorum  manuscriptorum  usum  benevole  nobiscum 
communicaverunt,  cum  nostro  Novi  Registri  et  Laudi 
Willi  elm  1  Alnwick  antecessoris  nostri  exemplari  conferen- 
dorum ;  et  viris  ornatissimis  Edmcndo  Yenables,  Prascentori 
Ecclesias  nostras  Catbedralis,  et  Edwaedo  White  Benson, 
Cancellario  ;  quorum  ille  duorum  istorum  codicum  collatio- 
nem,  nostro  rogatu,  bumanissime  et  accuratissime  confecit, 
et  uterque  in  schedis  typograpbicis  recensendis  et  emendan- 
dis  operam  suam  nobis  subministraverunt.  Yalete  dilecti  in 
Domino. 

Dabamus  Riseholmias,  in  Festo  S.  Matthias  Apostoli, 
XXIVto  die  mensis  Februarii,  a.s.  MDCCCLXXIIL,  et 
consecrationis  nostras  anniversario  quarto. 


Table  of  Contents  of  Lincoln  Statutes.  293 
NOVI  REGISTRI  CONSPECTUS. 

PAGINA 

Prsefatio  Willielmi  Alnwick,  Episcopi  Lincolniensis  ...  1 

Occasio  Novi  Registbi   ib. 

Canonici  convocantur  mandate  Episcopi,  per  Decanum  et  Capitulum  ib. 

Novum  Registrum  quare  compositum      ......  2 

Ad  solum  Novum  Registrum  recurrendum  pro  dubiis  in  Ecolesia 

Lincolniensi  decidendis     ........  ib. 

Tempus  compositionis  Novi  Registri,  a.d.  1410,  post  Festum  Sancti 

Micbaelis  ...........  ib. 

Divisio  Novi  Registri  in  quinque  partes  ......  3 

De  primaria  fundatione  Ecclesia;  Lincolniensis         .       .       .       .  ib. 

Remigius  Episcopus,  a.d.  1067 — 109-1:  Rothomagensis  Ecclesia      .  ib. 

Litera)  Williclmi  Primi  Regis  ........  ib. 

Constitutio  Ecclesiae ;  post  Episcopum  tresdecem  sunt  dignitates      .  ib. 

De  Episcopo   4 

Installatio  Episcopi ..........  ib. 

Juramentum    .              .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

De  residentia  Episcopi     .........  5 

Deductio  Episcopi  in  Ecclesia  ;  pulsatio  campanarum       .       .       .  ib. 

Executio  officii  per  Episcopum  in  Ecclesia       .....  ib. 

De  visitatione  Episcopi  personali     .......  6 

Vel  per  Commissarium,  qui  debet  esse  Canonicus     ....  7 

De  correctione  delatorum  Episcopo  in  visitatione  Capituli        .       .  ib. 

Correctiones  per  Episcopum  extra  Visitationom        .       .       .       .  ib. 

Correctio  Vicariorum      .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .8 

De  Decano  ib. 

Decanus  principalior  persona  post  Episcopum  .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Decani  electio   ib. 

Decanus  prsesentatur  Episcopo  confirmandus  .  .  .  .  .  ib. 
Decani  installatio    ..........  ib. 

Juramentum  9 

Residentia  Decani   ..........  ib. 

Juramentum  obediential  Decano  per  Canonicos  et  inferiores  pra> 

standum  .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .        9, 10 

Decanus  jurat  Episcopo  obedientiam       ......  10 

Officium  et  jurisdictio  Decani  ib. 

De  divinis  officiis  Decano  incumbentibus,  absente  Episcopo      .  .11 
Dies  pascendi  per  Decanum     ........  ib. 

Decano  absente,  sublimior  persona  celebrat      .  ■  .       .       .  ib. 

Decani  ministeria  sacra  in  Ecclesia,  absente  Episcopo       .       .       119  12 
Missa  matutinalis    .       .       .       .       .       .       .  "  .  .12 

Decanus  visitat  Canonicos  infirmos  ......       .  ib. 

Convocat  Canonicos  residentiarios,  et  non  residentiarios,  consensu 

Capituli  ib. 
Decani  visitatio  triennalis       ........  13 


294  Miscellanies. 

PAQ1NA 

In  corrigendis  detectorum  Episcopo  totuni  Capitulum  convocatur     .  14 

Decanus  corrigit  cliorum  et  Ecclesise  ministro.s  .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Duratio  visitationis  Decani      ........  ib. 

Absentiam  ct  negligentiam  Decani  supplet  Capitulum  in  correctio- 

nibus   15 

In  causis  contra  Canonicos  Decanus  et  Capitulum  communiter  pro- 

cedunt     .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .             .       .  ib. 

Decanus  non  visitat  prabendas  in  civitate        .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Jurisdictio  Decani  et  Capituli  in  prsebendas      .       .       .        .       .  ib. 

Insigniis  Episcopalibus  non  utitur  Decanus     .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Jurisdictio,  sede  vacante  .........  1C 

Decanus  admittit  Vicarios  Chorales  Capitulo  consentiente  .  .  17 
Quod  Decanus  facere  dicitur,  intelligenda  sunt  de  Decano  cum 

Capitulo  ...........  ib. 

Declaratio  verborum  "  Judicio  Capituli"   18 

Reverentia  Decano  facienda     ........  19 

Residentes  devillare  vel  minuere  volentes  licentiam  petant  a  Decano  ib. 

Episcopo  pra?sente,  Decanus  non  expectatur     .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Episcopus  Ecclesise  suae  caput,  cui  debetur  reverentia  a  Decano  .  20 
Residentiarii  ne  conveniantur  coram  Episcopo  extra  Domum  Capi- 

tularem    ...........  ib. 

De  Decano  praebendato    .........  ib. 

Decanus  jurisdictionem  communem  sibi  soli  ne  usurpet    .       .  20,21 
Decanus  preces  inceptas  re-incipere  ne  attemptet      .       .       .  .21 

De  clavibus  sigilli  communis    ........  ib. 

Cauda  capaj  Decani  non  portatur  per  sequentem  se  extra  clausum, 

nee  in  prsesentia  Episcopi ........  22 

De  officio  et  potestate  Pr^centokis   ib. 

Tabula  cantus .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Choristse  et  Magister  cantus  et  grammatical  praesentantur  per  Pra> 

centorem  .       .       .       .       .     -  .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Pueros  in  choro  corrigit  .........  23 

Cantus  Magistrum  in  civitate,  et  in  comitatu  praaficiat     .       .       .  ib. 

Libros  cantuum  reficit     .........  ib. 

Juramentum  de  residentia   ib. 

De  officio  et  potestate  Cancellarii        .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Scholas  Theologise  regit   .........  ib. 

In  eis  legit      .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Tabulam  de  Lectionibus,  Missis,  Epistolis,  Evangeliis  componit       .  ib. 

Lectiones  audit       ..........  ib. 

Sigillum  Capituli  custodit   ib. 

Legenda  in  Capitulo  legit       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Libros  Theologise  capitulares  custodit,  et  annuatim  invisit,  et  Capi- 
tulo ostendit                                                             .       .  ib. 

Registrum  librorum  conficit   24 

Scholas  Grammatica;  confiert    ........  ib. 


Contents  of  Lincoln  Statutes. 


295 


PACINI 

Libros  legendaruin  oorrigit   24 

Sermones  ad  populum  prsedicantur  per  Cancellarium       .       .       .  ib. 

Sermones  in  Latino,  et  in  Anglicis  .......  ib. 

Quibus  diebua  prsedicare  debet        .......  ib. 

Pnedicantes  in  Dominicis  pascuntur  per  celebrantem       .       .       .  ib. 
Examinatio  pro  Sacris  Ordinibus,  et  admittcndoruin  ad  Vicarias,  per- 

tinet  ad  Cancellarium       ........  ib. 

Residentia  Caneellarii     .........  ib. 

De  officio  Thesaueabii   ib. 

Reliquias,  libros  divino  officio  deputatos,  vasa,  vestimenta,  ornamenta 

Ecelesiae  custodit     .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Inventaria  bonorum  Ecelesiae  conficit       .       .....  25 

Sacristam  praesentat  Decano  et  Capitulo  .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

De  campanis,  cereis,  prsecipue  Paschalibus,  vino,  aqua,  bostiis,  can- 
delis,  manutergiis,  sale,  incenso,  carbonibus,  nattis,  per  Thesau- 

rarium  procurandis   .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Lotrix;  cerei  ante  et  super  altare     .......  26 

"  Liber  Niger  "   27 

Reparatio  vestimentorum        ........  ib. 

Residentia  Thesaurarii    .........  ib. 

De  officio,  praeeminentia,juramento,et  censu  octo  Abchidiaconoeum  ib. 

Archidiaconi  praestant  jurarnentum  obedientiae  Episcopo  .       .       .  ib. 

Arcbidiaconus  Lincolniensis     ........  ib. 

De  officio  Subdecani   28 

De  residentia  Subdecani  .........  ib. 

Quinquaginta  et  sex  Canonici  cum  Capite  suo  Corpus  et  Capitulum 

constituunt      ..........  ib. 

Ordo  dignitatum,  et  Canonicorum  sive  Praebendariorum,  cum  Psalmis 

ascriptis  et  taxatione   ib. 

Primo  stallus  Decani  in  introitu  cbori   ib. 

Stalli  Archidiaconorum   29 

Stallus  Subdecani   ib. 

Stallus  Caneellarii  juxta  sedem  Episcopalem   ib. 

Stallus  Arcbidiaconi  Oxoniensis       .......  ib. 

Praebendarum  ordo  ex  dextra  parte  chori,  cum  Psalmis  ascriptis       .  ib 

Dignitatum  ordo  ex  sinistra  parte  cbori   30 

Primo  stallus  Proecentoris       .   ib. 

Stalli  Archidiaconorum   ib. 

Stallus  Thesaurarii   ib. 

Secunda  Particula  Novi  Registri ;  de  Canonicorum  ingressu       .  32 

Investitura  Canonicorum  ab  Episcopo  collatorum     .       .       .       .  ib. 

Canonicus  inducitur  in  cborum,  et  installatur  .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Preces,  Psalmi  quotidie  dicendi;  reducitur  in  Capitulum  .       .       .  ib. 

Locus  ei  in  Capitulo  assignatur       .......  ib. 

Juramentum   ib. 


296 


Miscellanies. 


PAGIKA 


"  Laudum  "  "Willielmi  Alnwick,  Episcopi  Lincoln,  observandum       .  32 

In  processionibus  ordo  Canonicorum        ......  33 

Installatio  Archidiaconorum  non  prrebendatorum      .       .       .       .  ib. 

Procurator  Canonici  quomodo  investiendus      .       .       ...       .  ib. 

Juramentum  Canonicorum      ........  34 

De  vino  dando  Decano  et  Canonicis  per  installandos        .       .       .  ib. 
De  Vicario  substituendo  per  Canonicum  non  residentem  .       .  .35 

Officia  et  stipendia  Vicariorum        .......  ib. 

Canonici  servitio  Episcopi  insistentes  non  solvunt  septiuaam    .       .  ib. 
Jurisdictio  Canonicorum  in  praebendis  suis  extra  civitatem  Lincol- 
uiensem;   causa?  exceptse ;   ab  Arcbidiaconorum  et  Episcopi 

potestate  libera  35, 36 

Visitatio  Episcopi  reservatur    ........  36 

De  convocatione  omnium  Canonicorum    ......  39 

Recitatio  Psalmorum  quotidiana      .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Quilibet  Canonicus  praebendatus  deserviat  in  Ecclesia  per  hebdo- 

madam   ib. 

In  Dominica  bebdomadae  sua?  pascere  tenetur  .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Paetictjla  Teetia  de  Canonicorum  progressu,  residentia,  et  ordine 

niinistrandi   39 

De  residentia  primaria  majori  canonicali ;  quando  et  quomodo  intra- 
bunt,  quando  possunt  abesse ;  quse  onera  eis  incumbunt ;  et  quid 

sunt  percepturi        .........  40 

Residentia  major,  34  septimanarum  et  4  dierum      .       .       .       .  ib. 

De  protestatione  residential      ........  ib. 

Assignatio  bospitii                                                                   .  ib. 

Fractio  panis,  potiis  ministratio       .......  ib. 

Canonicis  boris  interesse  tenetur  quotidie        .       .       .       .  .41 

Minutus  residens,  petita  licentia  minuendi,  abesse  potest  per  unum 

diem        ...........  ib. 

In  Ecclesia  residere,  est  Ecclesia?  in  divinis  officiis  deservire    .       .  ib. 

Introitus  in  residentiam  .........  ib. 

De  celebrantibus  in  cursu   ib. 

Propria  septimana  trabit  ad  se  cursum     ......  ib. 

Hebdomadarius  debet  prsemuniri   42 

Quinam  sint  ab  eo  in  Dominica  pascendi  .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Anniversaria,  in  quibus  Decanus  celebrat  et  pascit    .       .       .       .  ib. 

Hebdomadarius  etiam  absens  pascit  .......  ib. 

Prioritas  in  Ecclesia        .........  ib. 

Pastus  duplicium   ib. 

Pastus  in  semiduplicibus  .........  43 

Laudum  Willielmi  Alnwick.  Episcopi  Lincoluiensis         .       .       .  ib. 

Quilibet  Canonicus  residens  babet  Capellanum  commcnsalem,  qui 

cum  ipso  cborum  frequentat  horis  nocturnis  et  diurnis      .       .  ib. 

Officia  divina,  diurna  et  nocturna,  a  Canonicis  assidue  frequentanda ; 

cum  bumilitate  et  devotione     .       .       ...       .       .  .44 

Colloquia  in  Ecclesia  ne  fiant   ib. 


Contents  of  L  incol n  Statutes.  297 

PAOIXA 

Domua  Dei  Dornus  Orationum   44 

Inclinations  capitis ;  conversiones   ih. 

Habitus  Canonicorum      .........  ib. 

Tonsura  .       .       .       .       .       •       •       .  .            •       •       .  ib. 

De  ordine  processionis      .........  45 

Ssecularis  habitus  in  Ecclesia  tempore  divini  officii  a  Canonicis  non 

portandus   ib. 

Capse  nigrse   ib. 

Vesperaj  sine  intervallo  cum  completorio  dicenda     .       .       .       .  ib. 

Collatio  in  Quadragesima        ........  ib. 

Nullus  nisi  Canonicus  celebret  in  majori  altari,  quibusdam  exceptis  .  46 

Celebrans  matutinis  debet  interesse  .......  ib. 

Anniversaria  celebrant  intabulati     .......  ib. 

Reverentia  altaris    ..........  ib. 

De  introitu  Canonicorum  in  cborum  ad  matutinas    .       .       .       .  ib. 

Canonici  se  inclinent   ib. 

Introitus  ad  vesperas   47 

Modus  standi  in  choro   ib. 

Conversio  ad  altare  ..........  ib. 

Signum  crucis  ...........  ib. 

Genuflexio       ...........  ib. 

Prostratio  in  ferialibus   ib. 

De  Capitulis,  in  singulis  Sabbatis,  convocandis  .       .       .       .  .48 

Hebdomadarii  scribuutur  in  tabula   ib. 

Convocatio  residentiariorum     ........  ib. 

Absentes  non  possunt  infringere  actus  residentiariorum  ;  "minutio 

aut  solatium "  .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Pauci  non  statuunt   49 

De  dispensationibus  non  cuiquam  residentiariorum  faciendis  ad  jura 

residential  capienda  licet  absens  f  uerit       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Capituli  negotia  ordinate  tractentur  .......  ib. 

In  Capitulum  extranei  ne  intrent                                               .  ib. 

Registrum  Capituli   50 

Custodia  clavium  sigilli                                                            .  ib. 

Canonici  singuli  contribuunt  in  causis  Capituli        .       .       .       .  ib. 

Pensiones  et  feoda  conceduntur  per  Capitulum  .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Canonici  residentes,  in  majori  et  in  minori,  quid  sunt  percepturi       .  51 

Communa  duplex  hebdomadario  datur      .       .       .       .       ,       .  ib. 

Festum  translationis  Sancti  Hugonis,  Lincolniensis  Episcopi    .       .  ib. 

Distributio  quarta  feria  Pentecostes  .......  ib. 

Vina,  obitus,  et  alia ..........  ib. 

Collationes  beneficiorum  ad  Decanum  et  Capitulum  spectantium  per 

Capitulum  fiunt       .........  52 

De  firmis  canonicalibus    .........  53 

Decanus  cum  Pra;posito  maneria  Ecclesise  visitat     .       .       .       .  ib. 

Hospitia  Canonicorum  infra  clausum  visitent  Decanus  (vel,  Decano 

absente,  Praecentor)  et  Cancellarius  .       .                            .  ib. 

De  minori  residentia   51 


298  Miscellanies. 

PAGINA 

Continue  vel  interpolate  per  septendecim  hebdomadas  inimunitas 

residentiuru  in  minori      ........  54 

Quaeta  Paes   55 

De  Vicariis  Canonicorum         .                     .....  ib. 

De  Canonico  intirmo        ...              .....  ib. 

Decanus  visitat       ....              .....  ib. 

Unctio  extrema       .       .       .       .       .       .              .       .       .  ib. 

Exequiae  Canonici   56 

Funus  in  Ecclesia    ......*....  ib. 

Psalmi,  vigiliae                                                                        .  ib. 

Missa     ............  ib. 

Sepultura       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Testamentum  .       .       .       .       .       .              .       .       .       .  ib. 

Canonicus  defunctus  percipit  fructus  per  annum       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Usus  domorum  proebendse  per  annum      ......  ib. 

Instauramentum  defuncti,  caulae,  horrea,  grangia?,  pascua,  boves, 

averia,  warrectum,  nemora,  implementa,  fimus  .       .       .  .57 

De  Canonico  religionem  ingrediente        ......  ib. 

De  Canonico  in  Episcopum  electo     .......  ib. 

Hissse;  Psalteria   58 

Quinta  Pabs   59 

De  Vicariis,  Cantariarum  Capellanis        .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Juramentum  Vicarioruni  .........  ib. 

Infra  annum  sciat  corde  tenus  Psalmos    ......  ib. 

De  poena  Canonici  non  praasentantis  Vicarium  infra  tempus     .       .  ib. 

Stipendia  Vicariorum   60 

Communa  Vicariorum   ib. 

Propositi  Vicariorum   ib. 

Majores  horse,  et  minores   ib. 

De  absentia  Vicariorum   61 

Minutio  non  excusat       .........  ib. 

Propositi  computus        .........  ib. 

Communa  Vicariorum     .                                                         .  ib. 

Missce  pro  Canonicis  defunctis        .......  ib. 

Habitus  et  tonsura  Vicariorum   ib. 

Ingressus  in  chorum  ;  incessus ;  discursus  ne  fiant  .       .       .       .  ib. 

Castitas   ib. 

Incontinentia?  poena        .........  ib 

In  vias  non  debent  incedere   63 

Capitulum  ingrediantur  ad  audiendas  lectiones,  et  in  die  Sabbati 

iustructionem  et  correctionem  recepturi     .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Bixce   ib. 

Processiones    ...........  ib. 

Succentor  ordinat  processiones   ib. 

De  modo  Psalmos  cantandi     ........  ib. 

Vicarii  habent  aulam  communem   64 


Contents  of  Lincoln  Statutes.  299 

PAGINA 

Colloquia  cum  suspoctis  ne  habeant ;  tabernas  ne  frequentent  .       .  G4 

Vicarii  invitantur  ad  refectionem  a  Canonicis   .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Vicarius  post  residentiam  Canonici  sui  quando  desinit     .       .       .  ib. 

Altare  Sancti  Petri   ib. 

De  Prseposito  annuo       .........  65 

Sit  ad  firmarios  rnodestus        ........  ib. 

Ecclesias  appropriatas  circuuieat      .......  ib. 

De  Sacrista,  Thesaurarii  ministro    .......  ib. 

De  Magistris  et  Custodibus  fabricse  .......  C6 

Defectus  Ecclesise  et  fenestrarum  reparant;  contra  pluviarum,  nivum, 
columbaruni  injurias,  et  sbrdes,  sedulo  iuvigilant ;  campanilia, 
voltas,  dearnbulatoria,  gutteras  scrutantur;  nec  liquari  sinant 

plumbum,  vel  ligna  securibus  csedi  supra  voltas        .       .       .  ib. 

Juramentum   ...........  67 

Modus  computandi  ..........  ib. 

De  fimo  ejiciendo     ..........  ib. 

Refrigescit  charitas,  cessat  devotio  .......  ib. 

Indulgentise  pro  fabrica  publicandse  .......  ib. 

Aliaa  quaistiones  per  Quadragesimam  suspense        .       .       .  .68 

Quid  publicent  nuntii  fabricse  ........  ib. 

De  officio  Succentoris      .........  ib. 

De  officio  Vicecancellarii  .........  ib. 

Defectus  ministrantium  notant        .......  ib. 

Absentibus  alios  substituunt    ........  ib. 

De  cantariarum  presbyteris     .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Missse  alta  voce  non  dicantur  ........  6!) 

Ignoti  presbyteri  ne  permittantur  celebrare     .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Collationes  cantariarum  .........  ib. 

Tempus  celebrationum  Vicariorum  .......  ib. 

De  pauperibus  clericis  cbori     .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .70 

De  choristis    ...........  ib. 

Choristse,  admissi  per  Praecentorem,  simul  vivant,  habeant  Canoni- 
cum  magistrum ;  et  senescallum;  a  Prsecentore  praesentandi; 
de  Lincolniensi  Dioecesi  praeferendi ;  inter  spatiandum  habeant 

ducem  et  custodem  .........  ib. 

Ecclesue  pollutae  reconciliatio  .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .71 

In  praesentia  Regis,  Canonici  possunt  celebrare,  etiam  si  nocte  prajce- 

dente  matutinis  non  interfuerint   ib. 

Statuta  Vicariorum       .       .       .   73 

Quilibet  Canonicus  proasentabit  Vicarium  Decano,  qui  examinatur 

an  sciat  legere  et  cantare ;  quid  addiscat  .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Juramentum   ...........  ib. 

Stipendium     ...........  ib. 

Denarius  diurnus     ..........  74 

Perditiones  Vicariorum    .........  ib. 

Horas  majores  ...........  ib. 

Hora;  miuores  ...........  ib. 


300 


Miscellanies. 


PAGIlfA 


Propositus  Vicariorum  . 
Gestus  clcricorum  in  choro 
Inclinationes  .... 
Ingressus,  modestia 
Ne  insolenter  formas  transiliant 
Murmur  ne  fiat  in  choro  . 


75 
lb. 
ib. 
ib. 
ib. 
7G 


Modus  standi  et  sedendi  in  choro  ib. 


Compositio  inter  Archiepiscopuin  Cantuariensem  et  Decanura,  sede 

vacante,  a.d.  1361  78 

Ecclesise  appropriate  de  Holbech,  Mumby,  et  Woburue,  a.d.  1334    .  ib. 

Indentura  pro  reditibus  Willielmi  Dalderby  in  Newport,  A.D.  1417  .  ib. 

Laudum  Willielmi  Alnwick,  Episcopi  Lincolniensis,  a.d.  1439  .  81 
Dissentio  orta  inter  Decanum,  Johannem  Macworth,  et  Capituluui  .  ib. 
Compromissum  Capituli  .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Qusestiones  litis  adversus  Decanum,  per  Capitulum  .       .       .     82 — 87 
Promissio  Capituli  de  rata,  habenda  sententia.  Episcopi     .       .     88 — 90 
Compromissum  Decani    .       ....       i       ...  90 

Qusestiones  litis  per  Decanum  ........  ib. 

Juramentum  Decani  de  Laudo  Episcopi  observando        .       .  .94 
Willielmus  Episcopus,  corporis  capitularis  caput,  compromissa  Capi- 
tuli et  Decani  accipit ;  convocat  Canonicos,  et  consensu  Canoni- 
corum  ad  Laudum  (i.  e.  sentence)  promulgandum  procedit  "       .  95 
Episcopus  Lincolniensis  Ecclesia?  Ordinarius    .....  96 

Decanus  vice  duorum  fungitur        .......  ib. 

Capitulum,  Decano  absente,  feoda  concedit      .       .       .       .  .97 

Capitulum  super  levibus  absente  Decano  statuit       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Residentiarius  Canonicus  Capellauum  habere  debet  .       .       .       .  ib. 

Vicarius  non  potest  esse  Capellanus  .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Cantarias  vacantes  quis  confert       .......  ib. 

Donata  vel  legata  ad  certum  usum  ne  transferantur  ad  alium   .       .  98 
Pannus  Canonicis  liberatus  pro  pauperibus  clericis  non  alienandus   .  ib. 
Canonicus  non  admittitur  in  minorem  residentiam,  nisi  post  triennium 

in  majore .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  ib. 

Reparationes  hospitiorum  quando  per  Canonicos  faciendse  .       .        .  100 
Stipendia  ministrorum  primo  solvantur    ......  ib. 

Detecta  in  visitatione  Episcopali  corrigantur  per  Decanum  et  Capi- 
tulum     ...........  ib. 

Dispensationes  residentiariis  ne  fiant  ut  absentes  sint      .       .       .  ib. 
Bona,  i.e.  calices,  vestimenta,  libri,  jocalia,  vasa  aurea  et  argentea 

segniter  nimis  conservantur      .......  101 

Thesaurarii  munus  ..........  ib. 


Prostratio 

Conversio  ad  altare  . 
Conversio  ad  Evangelium 
Signatio  cruris 


ib. 
77 
ib. 
ib. 


Lincoln  Cathedral  Statutes.  301 

PAOINA 

Inventaria  facienda   101 

Pastus  chori  per  Decanum  in  festis  principalibus      ....  102 

Et  in  obitibus  Regum  et  Episcoporum     ......  ib. 

Dignitates  etiam  absentes  pascere  debent  certis  festis       .       .  ib. 
Pnubendatus  Decanus,  non  residentiam  faciens,  ut  Pra?bendarius 

(quarnvis  resideat  ut  Decanus)  babeat  Vicarium        .       .       .  103 

Ubi  emoluuientiun,  ibi  onus     ........  ib. 

Decani  liberi  a  celebrando  et  pascendo  in  cursu        .       .       .       .  ib. 

Cognitio  causarum  a  Decano  simul  cum  Capitulo  facienda        .       .  101 

Portse  clausi  claudantur  horis  debitis       ......  ib. 

Qua:dam  facit  Decanus  solus  absque  Capitulo  ....       .  ib. 

Pulsatio  campanai-um  quando  cessabit     ......  105 

In  festis  celebrantes  tabulantur  per  Vicecancellarium       .       .       .  106 

Vicariorum  correctio  et  expulsio      .......  ib. 

Annullatio  ordinationum  Willielmi  Gray  ......  ib. 

Custodia  claviurn  sigilli  communis  .......  ib. 

Reditus  fabricae  et  expensse      ........  108 

Pauperes  clerici  quid  scire  debent    .......  ib. 

Juramentum  de  Laudo  Episcopi  observando   109 

Laudi  observatio     ..........  110 

Protestatio  Episcopi  Laudatoris      .......  Ill 

Laudum  publicatur  23  Jun.  1439    ib. 

Testis   112 


Address  to  the  Dean  and,  Chapter  and  other  members  of  the 
Capitular  body,  at  the  Visitation  of  Lincoln  Cathedral. 
(April  29,  1873.) 


My   Reverend  and  Lay   Brethren,   Members  op  this 
Cathedral  Church  of  St.  Mary,  Lincoln, — 

A  question  may  be  asked,  Why,  after  a  lapse  of  many 
years,  in  which  no  Visitation  of  this  Cathedral  Church  has 
been  held,  you  have  been  called  together  for  that  purpose 
to-day  ? 

This  is  a  reasonable  inquiry.  Let  me  endeavour  to  answer 
it.  Our  Code  of  Statutes,'  which  was  framed  in  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century,2  and  embodies  the  laws  and 
customs  of  the  Cathedral  from  its  foundation  at  the  close  of 
the  eleventh  century,  contemplates  that  such  Visitations  will 
be  held  by  the  Bishop  from  time  to  time.3  That  Code  of 
Statutes  itself  was  due  to  such  a  Visitation.4 

One  of  the  most  eminent  Bishops  of  Lincoln,  Robert 

1  Called  the  "  Novum  Registrum,"  which  has  been  printed  for  the 
first  time  in  the  present  year.  Some  short  extracts  from  it  maybe  seen 
in  Wilkins'  "  Concilia,"  i.  532 — 538,  which  show  that  Lincoln  was  a  pattern 
to  other  Cathedrals,  even  in  Scotland,  e.  g.  Moray. 

2  Soon  after  Michaelmas,  a.d.  1440.    See  "  Novum  Registrum,"  p.  1. 

3  "  Novum  Registrum  "  (dated  at  the  Bishop's  Manor  at  Nettleham, 
29  June,  1439)  pp.  1  and  6,  where  it  is  said  that  the  Bishop  may  visit 
"  Ecclesiam  suam  Cathedralem,  decanum  et  capitulum  ejusdem  et  personas 
quascunque  habentes  dignitates  canonicatus,  prabendas,  personatus,  can- 
tariasque  et  officia  in  eadem,  quoties  et  quando  voluerit "  (Cp.  "Laudum" 
Willielmi  Alnwick,  p.  100)  ;  and  this  is  correctly  stated  among  the 
answers  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter,  on  April  13th,  1853,  to  the  Cathedral 
Commissioners,  in  the  following  words  (''Report,"  p.  261) :  "The  Bishop 
is  visitor  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  the  Cathedral,  and  of  all  persons 
having  dignities,  canonries,  prebends,  parsonages,  chapteries,  and  other 
offices  in  the  same,  as  often  and  when  he  shall  think  it  expedient,"  and 
there  "  is  no  other  interpreter  of  the  Statutes  than  the  Visitor." 

4  Ibid.  p.  1.    So  was  the  "  Laudum,"  see  pp.  G2  and  95. 


Address  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Lincoln.  303 


G rossctete,  in  a  letter  written  about  a.d.  1240,  says*  that 
"  a  Bishop,  who  is  not  hindered  by  insuperable  impediments, 
cannot,  without  peril  to  his  own  soul,  omit  the  duty  of 
holding  Visitations,  and,  above  all  (he  adds),  ought  he  to 
visit  the  Chapter  of  his  Cathedral  Church." 

Accordingly  such  Visitations  Lave  been  held  of  this 
Cathedral  by  Bishops  of  Lincoln  from  time  immemorial.  A 
Visitation  was  held  in  this  Chapter-house 6  by  Robert 
Grossetete  in  1246,  by  Bishop  D'Alderby  in  1300,  by  Bishop 
Burgwash  in  1334/  by  William  Smyth  (the  founder  of 
Brasenose  College)  in  the  spring  of  1501, 8  and  was  continued 
by  adjournments  for  a  fortnight,  and  was  renewed  in  the 
autumn  of  1503  ;  by  Bishop  William  Barlow,  by  Commission 
in  1611,  by  Bishop  Montaigne  in  1618,  by  Bishop  Barlow, 
acting  by  a  Commission,  in  the  year  1690,  and  by  four 
Bishops  of  Lincoln  in  succession  (three  9  of  whom  have  left 
a  name  which  will  always  be  associated  with  the  history  of 
the  provincial  Synods  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the 
fourth1  is  not  unworthy  to  be  named  with  them), — Bishop 
Tenison  in  1693,  Bishop  Gardiner  in  1697,  and  again  in 
1703,  Bishop  Wake  in  1706 2  and  1709,  and  in  1712,  which 
was  continued,  by  prorogation,  from  May  24th  to  the  10th 
July  in  that  year,  and  again,  by  Commission,  in  1715,  and 
by  Bishop  Gibson  1718.  A  Visitation  was  held  by  Bishop 
Reynolds  1729,  Bishop  Thomas  in  1748,  and  in  1751. 

Whether  the  intermission  of  capitular  Visitations  since 

6  Eoberti  Grossetete,  "  Epistola?,  ed.  Luard,"  pp.  371  and  375. 

6  Which  was  built  about  a.d.  1225,  in  the  Episcopate  of  Hugh  de 
Wells,  certainly  before  1235,  when  he  died.  Mr.  Edmund  Sharpe, 
"Lincoln  Excursion,"  1871,  pp.  26  and  151;  Cp.  Dimock's  History 
of  Lincoln  Cathedral  in  "Transactions  of  Lincoln  Archit.  Society  for 
1867,"  p.  199. 

7  See  Cottonian  MSS.  Vitell.  A.  X.  4. 

8  This  Visitation,  which  seems  to  have  been  conducted  with  much 
solemnity  and  magnificence,  is  described  in  the  "  Life  of  Bishop  Smyth," 
by  Churton,  pp.  116—127,  from  Regist.  Lincoln.  £  140—145. 

9  Bishops  Tenison,  Wake,  and  Gibson. 

1  Bishop  Gardiner.    His  primary  charge,  or  "  Advice  to  the  Clergy," 
1697,  is  a  very  creditable  record  of  him. 

2  When  sundry  Statutes  and  Orders  were  promulgated  by  the  Bishop, 
with  the  consent  of  the  Dean,  dignitaries,  and  prebendaries  of  this  Cathe- 
dral Church.    The  same  was  done  in  1712. 


3°4 


Miscellanies. 


that  time  may  be  reckoned  among  the  causes  of  the  spiritual 
calamities  of  our  Church  in  the  last  century — on  which  we 
look  back  with  sorrow — it  is  not  necessary  now  to  inquire ; 
suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  circumstances  of  the  present  times 
imperatively  demand  a  revival  of  a  practice  which  is  pre- 
scribed by  our  laws,  and  is  commended  by  the  example  of 
our  forefathers. 

The  question  of  the  condition  and  prospects  of  our 
Cathedral  Churches  is  forced  upon  our  consideration  by 
passing  events.  It  would  seem  to  be  our  duty  to  show  to 
the  world  that  we  do  not  shrink  from  inquiry,  and  that  we 
are  united  in  a  common  desire  to  remove  abuses  in  our 
system,  to  correct  errors,  to  supply  defects,  and  to  improve, 
adorn,  and  consolidate  these  ancient  sanctuaries  of  Almighty 
God,  which  are  set  apart  for  the  continual  work  of  prayer 
and  praise,  and  for  the  encouragement  of  sound  learning 
and  religious  education,  and  which  shed  glory  on  England 
and  on  Christendom. 

In  order  that  we  may  with  God's  help  be  able  to  do  this 
work  with  well-advised  judgment,  we  must  endeavour  to 
gain  a  clear  insight  into  the  constitution  of  our  Cathedrals, 
and  into  the  purposes  for  which  they  were  founded,  and  for 
which  they  exist. 

What  do  we  mean  by  a  Cathedral  ?  How  is  it  distinguished 
from  the  Parish  Churches  of  a  diocese  ?  "What  duties  does  it 
discharge  that  are  not  performed  by  them  ?  What  are  the 
reasons  of  its  existence  ?    What  is  the  ideal  of  it  ? 

To  such  questions  as  these  various  answers  are  given. 

By  some  persons  it  is  replied,  that  a  Cathedral  is  a 
magnificent  fabric,  of  deep  historical  and  artistic  interest  to 
the  literary  student,  the  antiquary,  the  architect,  and  the 
sculptor.  This  is  true.  But  many  Parish  Churches, 
especially  in  this  Diocese,  have  almost  equal  claims  to  regard 
on  these  accounts. 

Others  would  answer,  that  in  Cathedrals  the  voice  of 

Morning  and  Evening  Prayer  never  ceases;  and  that  a 

Cathedral  is  a  school  of  Church  music,  and  a  model  of 

litursrical  order  to  a  Diocese.    But  here  asrain  with  thank- 
ed o 

fulness  we  may  acknowledge  that  many  of  our  Parish 


On  Cathedrals  and  Parish  Churches.  305 

churches  may  vie  with  our  Cathedrals.  Again,  it  may  be 
said,  that  in  our  Cathedrals  large  congregations  of  devout 
worshippers  are  assembled,  and  derive  great  spiritual 
benefit  from  the  piety,  learning,  and  eloquence  of  Christian 
preachers.  But  the  worshippers  in  some  of  our  parish 
churches  are  more  numerous  than  those  who  are  gathered 
together  in  some  of  our  Cathedrals ;  and  the  members  of 
our  capitular  bodies  will  thankfully  acknowledge,  that  their 
brethren  of  the  parochial  clergy  receive  the  most  cheering 
evidence  of  the  good  effects  of  their  teaching  in  the  church, 
because  it  is  endeared  to  their  people  by  the  personal  visits 
of  the  pastor,  going  from  house  to  house  through  his  parish, 
and  especially  by  his  spiritual  ministrations  at  the  bed  of 
sickness  and  of  death. 

I  do  not  advert  to  the  opinion  of  some,  that  Cathedrals 
are  to  be  regarded  as  offering  rewards  for  work  already 
done,  and  as  quiet  retirements  and  tranquil  resting-places 
for  learned  leisure.  This  was  the  case  formerly,  when  their 
endowments  were  unimpaired,  and  their  resident  members 
were  numerous ;  but  with  their  present  reduced  proportions 
it  can  hardly  be  realized  now  in  any  considerable  degree. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  affirmed,  that  the  attributes  we 
have  now  specified  do  indeed  commend  our  Cathedrals3  to 
affectionate  reverence  and  gratitude ;  but  that  they  are  not 
so  distinctively  characteristic  of  them  as  to  constitute  their 
essence.  Those  attributes  might  still  belong  to  our  Cathedrals 
if  they  were  changed  into  parish  churches. 

What  then,  we  repeat,  do  we  mean  by  a  Cathedral? 
What  are  the  ends  which  are  specially  attained  by  it  ? 
What  are  the  functions  it  performs,  which  are  not  discharged 
by  any  other  church  in  the  diocese  ? 

For  an  answer  to  this  question  we  have  not  far  to  look. 
We  find  it  supplied  in  our  own  Code  of  Statutes,  which  you 


3  Their  claims  in  these  respects  have  been  stated  with  his  usual 
eloquence  by  one  who  is  among  their  brightest  ornaments — the  present 
Dean  of  Norwich,  in  his  work  entitled  "  The  Principles  of  the  Cathedral 
System  :"  London,  1870. 

VOL.  III.  X 


306 


Miscellanies. 


have  in  your  hands,  and  which  we  have  promised  to  obey,  as 
far  as  we  are  able.4 

First,  we  see  there  that  in  the  Cathedral  Church,  as  its 
name  indicates,  is  the  cathedra,  or  seat  of  the  Bishop  of  the 
diocese.  Lincoln  Cathedral  was  (like  the  other  eight 
English  Cathedral  Churches  of  the  old  foundation)  a  church 
of  secular  canons,  and  not  of  regulars  or  monks;  and  this 
preserved  it  from  those  disasters  which  altered  the  character 
and  constitution  of  what  are  termed  the  "  Conventual 
Cathedrals  "  of  England.5  And  hence  it  is,  that  at  this  day 
the  Cathedral  Church  of  Lincoln  stands  in  the  first  rank,  as 
one  of  the  noblest  specimens  of  that  glorious  family  of  old 
English  Cathedrals,  which,  whether  we  consider  the  wisdom 
of  their  founders,  and  the  excellence  of  their  laws,  or  the 
magnificence  of  their  fabrics,  are  probably  without  a  parallel 
in  the  Western  or  Eastern  Church. 

In  the  Cathedral  Church  was  the  seat  of  the  Bishop ;  he 
held  the  chief  place,6  and  exercised  the  principal  authority 
there,  in  the  regulation  and  ordering  of  its  sacred  services, 
in  the  administration  of  its  laws  and  determination  of  con- 
troversies, and  in  the  maintenance  of  its  discipline,  and  in 
so  governing  the  whole  capitular  body,  that  its  beneficent 
influence  was  felt  in  every  part  of  the  diocese. 

But  the  position  of  the  Bishop  was  not  one  of  arbitrary 
power.  He  was  provided  with  a  Council.  The  Chapter  was 
the  "  Senatus  Episcopi ;"  7  and  though  he  could  administer 

4  I  am  well  aware  that  the  remarks  in  this  Address  concerning  the 
true  ideal  of  a  Cathedral  apply  more  to  those  like  Lincoln,  of  the  old 
foundation,  than  to  the  Cathedrals  of  the  new ;  hut  I  venture  to  think 
that  much  more  might  be  gained  by  assimilating  those  of  the  new  to  the 
old  than  vice  versa.  For  example,  why  should  not  the  "  honorary 
canons  "  of  the  new  be  put  on  the  same  footing  as  the  prebendaries  of 
the  old,  as  to  votes  in  elections  of  the  Bishop  and  of  the  Proctor  in 
Convocation  for  the  Cathedral  ? 

5  See  the  First  Report  of  the  Cathedral  Commissioners,  a.d.  1854, 
pp.  3 — 10 ;  and  Mr.  Edward  A.  Freeman's  learned  and  interesting  Essay 
in  Dean  Howson's  volume  on  "  Cathedrals,"  pp.  138 — 165,  London, 
1872. 

6  See  our  "  Novum  Registrum,"  p.  4 ;  and  "  Laudum,"  p.  95,  line  18. 

7  Compare  Bishop  Stillingfleet's  "  Ecclesiastical  Cases,"  vol.  ii.  p.  564, 
London,  1704. 


Status  of  the  Bishop — relation  to  Chapter.  307 


existing-  laws  by  bis  own  authority,  yet  be  would  not  frame 
and  promulge  any  new  laws  without  the  consent  of  that 
Council.  Our  digest  of  Statutes,  which  bears  the  name  of  a 
Bishop  of  Lincoln — William  Alnwick — would  not  have  had 
any  practical  effect,  if  it  had  not  been  put  forth  with  that 
consent.  And  the  "Laudum"  or  <cArbitrium"  of  the 
same  Bishop,  which  settled  the  disputes  between  the  Dean 
and  the  Chapter 8  (a.d.  1439)  a  little  before  the  promulga- 
tion of  the  Statutes,  derives  its  validity  from  his  authority, 
exercised  with  the  consent  of  his  Capitular  Council. 

That  Capitular  Council,  or  Chapter,  consisted  of  the  Dean 
and  the  other  twelve  dignities,  as  they  are  called  in  that 
Code,1  viz.  the  precentor,  chancellor,  treasurer  (now  no 
longer  existing),  sub-dean,  and  the  archdeacons  of  the 
diocese  (eight  in  number),  and  the  other  canons  or  preben- 
daries (as  they  were  called)  who  are  represented  here 
to-day. 

This  numerous  body,  consisting  of  fifty-six  persons,  was 
the  Constitutional  Council  of  the  Bishop.  This  body — and 
this  body  alone — is  called  in  the  Statutes  "  the  Chapter  of 
the  Cathedral ;"  2  and  it  was  his  duty  to  avail  himself  of  its 
help,  for  joint  consultation,  especially  on  matters  of  doctrine 
and  discipline.3 

If  we  proceed  to  analyze  the  constituent  elements  of  this 
capitular  body,  we  recognize  the  wise  policy  of  those  who 
formed  it. 

Among  the  thirteen  dignities,  four 4  held  the  foremost 
places,  and  the  position  which  they  occupied  and  the  duties 

8  The  "  Laudum  "  of  Bishop  Alnwick,  now  printed  for  the  first  time, 
is  dated  at  Nettleham,  near  Lincoln,  June  29,  1439,  a  year  before  the 
"  Novum  Registrum,"  or  Digest  of  Statutes  ;  see  above,  pp.  290 — 301. 

1  "  Novum  Registrum,"  p.  3. 

2  "  Quinquaginta  et  sex  Canonici  Ecclesise  beataj  Maria?  Lincolni- 
ensis  cum  capite  suo  corpus  et  capitulum  constituunt,  negotia  Ecclesiae 
et  secreta  tractant." — "Novum  Registrum,"  p.  28. 

3  In  the  Statutes  of  the  Cathedral  of  Salisbury  (one  of  the  Cathedrals 
of  the  old  foundation,  like  Lincoln)  the  Chapter  is  called  "  Concilium 
Episcopi  contra  haereses  et  schismata." 

4  A  list  of  persons  who  have  held  them,  may  be  seen  in  Le  Neve's 
"  Fasti  Ecclesiae,"  pp.  144 — 171,  ed.  Louden,  1716 ;  and  in  Browne 
Willis,  "  English  Cathedrals,"  vol.  iii.  1—131,  Lond.,  1742. 

x  2 


3o8 


Afisccllanics. 


allotted  to  them  respectively  are  full  of  significance.  It  is 
worthy  of  remark,  as  a  characteristic  principle  of  these 
capitular  dignities,  that  each  of  the  persons  who  held  thorn 
had  distinct  functions  assigned  to  him ;  and  in  order  that 
he  might  discharge  them  faithfully  and  assiduously,  he  was 
bound  to  reside  eight  months5  in  the  year. 

First  among  these  dignities  was  the  Dean. 

He  represents  the  priestly  and  pastoral  office  of  the 
Church.  Next  to  the  Bishop  he  held  the  chief  place  in  the 
ministrations  of  the  Church.  He  had  the  cure  of  souls  of 
all  the  members  of  the  capitular  body.  He  had  archidiaconal 
jurisdiction  in  all  the  parishes  annexed  to  the  prebends  of 
the  Cathedral.  He  was  the  "  Censor  morum  "  of  the  whole 
body,  and  all  its  members  promised  obedience  to  him. 

In  some  Cathedrals  of  the  old  foundation  the  Dean 
exei'cised  archidiaconal  jurisdiction 6  over  the  churches  and 
parishes  of  the  Cathedral  city.  This  was  not  the  case  at 
Lincoln ; 7  but  he  had  the  right  of  visiting  the  Chapter 
triennially,  and  of  correcting  abuses  in  it. 

Next  to  the  Dean  in  dignity  was  the  Precentor.  The 
position  he  holds  in  the  Cathedral  Church,  and  the  duties 
annexed  to  his  office,  display  the  pious  zeal  of  our  founders 
and  forefathers  for  the  reverent  celebration  of  the  worship 
of  God,  and  for  the  moral  as  well  as  musical  training  and 
ordering  of  the  Christian  Levites  ministering  in  the  sanctuary, 
and  for  the  devout  offering  of  the  continual  sacrifice  of 

5  Thirty-four  weeks  and  five  days.  "  Eegistrum  Xovum,"  p.  9 ; 
"Laudum,"  p.  102.  This  order,  which  the  Dean  and  Chapter  were 
bound  on  oath  to  obey,  could  hardly  be  set  aside  by  »  bye-law  of  their 
own  in  1596,  by  which  each  residentiary  was  allowed  to  be  absent  from 
the  Cathedral  261  days  in  the  year." — "  Eeport  of  the  Cathedral  Com- 
mission," p.  254. 

0  As  at  Lichfield.  Dugdale,  iii.  243.  See  also  "  Cathedra'  Commission 
Report,"  p.  6 ;  and  Appendix,  pp.  7  and  26. 

7  Even  in  Bishop  Grossetete's  time  (a.d.  1240)  there  was  a  "  Rural 
Dean  of  Christianity"  (Epist.  p.  266),  i.e.  of  the  Cathedral  precinct  and 
city — a  remarkable  word,  as  showing  that  the  neighboui'hood  of  a  Cathedral 
was  regarded  as  a  luminous  spiritual  Goshen,  contrasted  with  the  Egypt 
of  paganism,  properly  so  called,  around  it.  The  Rural  Dean  was  sub- 
ordinate to  the  Archdeacon  of  Lincoln. 


The  Dean — Precentor,  Chancellor.  309 


prayer  and  praise,  with  all  the  appropriate  accessories  of 
sacred  song  and  holy  melody  to  His  Divine  Glory  and 
Majesty. 

But  our  founders  and  forefathers  were  wisely  conscious 
that  the  exercise  of  the  priestly  and  pastoral  office,  and  the 
choral  harmonies  of  liturgical  services  would  be  of  little 
avail  without  the  maintenance  of  sound  doctrine  animating 
and  regulating  the  whole.  Therefore  next  to  the  Dean  and 
Precentor  they  placed  the  Chancellor.  He  was  the  theo- 
logiau,  the  ecclesiastical  professor  and  lecturer,  the  homilist, 
the  school  inspector,  the  grammarian,  the  librarian,  and  the 
secretary  of  the  capitular  body.  It  was  his  office  to  examine 
candidates  for  Holy  Orders,  and  to  certify  their  fitness  to 
the  Bishop.  Our  Cathedral  Churches  were  intended  to 
perform  functions  like  those  which  were  discharged  of  old 
by  "  the  schools  of  the  prophets,"  8  in  the  days  of  Samuel 
and  Elijah ;  and  we  know  that  in  ancient  days  the  Cathedral 
Church  of  Lincoln  performed  that  holy  work.  Young  men 
came  from  Iceland  in  the  twelfth  century  to  be  educated 
for  Holy  Orders  here.9  Is  there  not  a  need  that  this  work 
of  training  for  the  ministry  should  be  renewed  here  at  the 
present  time  ?  1 

The  last  place  among  the  four  principal  dignities  was  held 
by  the  Treasurer,  who  was  not  a  bursar  or  steward,  but  had 

8  Cp.  Canon  Norris  in  Dean  Howson's  volume,  pp.  38 — 42. 

9  I  have  been  assured  of  this  by  a  learned  native  of  Iceland,  Dr. 
Magnusson,  now  resident  at  Cambridge.  See  also  the  evidence  of  it  in 
the  "  Quarterly  Heview,"  vol.  exxx.  No.  259,  p.  232,  whence  it  appears 
that  two  Icelandic  Bishops  in  succession — St.  Thorlak  and  his  nephew 
Paul — studied  theology  at  Lincoln.  In  the  Episcopate  of  St.  Hugh  of 
Lincoln,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  who  was  his  friend,  "  spent  several  years 
at  Lincoln,  for  the  sake  of  study  in  the  then  famous  school  of  the  learned 
Chancellor  William  de  Monte,  or  Montibus,"  as  we  are  reminded  by  our 
learned  Prebendary,  the  Rev.  J.  F.  Dimock,  in  the  "  Transactions  of  our 
Architectural  Society  for  1867,"  p.  195. 

1  This  has  now  been  done.  The  Lincoln  Theological  School  numbered 
35  students  in  training  for  Holy  Orders  in  Dec,  1878. 

In  Canon  Westcott's  papers  on  "  Cathedral  Work  "  (in  "  Macmillan's 
Magazine,"  for  January  and  February,  1870),  this  important  principle  is 
developed,  that  the  Cathedrals,  ought  to  be  seminaries  of  theological 
learning  and  instruction,  pp.  308 — 313. 


Miscellanies. 


the  care  of  the  sacred  vessels  and  vestments  of  the  Church. ; 
This  office  ceased  to  exist  about  340  years  ago.3 

In  order  that  the  functions  of  the  two  principal  persons 
— the  Dean  and  Precentor- — might  never  fail  to  be  exercised, 
the  Statutes  provided  them  with  deputies  to  supply  their 
place  ;  namely,  the  Subdean  and  the  Succentor. 

Next  in  order  followed  the  Archdeacons,  eight  in  number, 
having  stalls  in  the  Cathedral, but  going  forth  from  it  to  exer- 
cise visitatorial  authority  in  the  diocese  in  subordination  to  the 
Bishop,  and  thus  connecting  the  Cathedral  Church  with  every 
parish  of  this  vast  diocese,  which,  when  our  Code  of  Statutes 
was  framed,  reached  from  the  Humber  to  the  Thames. 

This  connexion  and  ramification  were  further  strengthened 
and  extended  by  means  of  the  canons  or  prebendaries,  who 
had  parochial  cures  and  endowments  in  various  parts  of  the 
diocese.  Every  prebendary  was  a  canon  of  the  Cathedral, 
and  every  canon  of  the  Cathedi'al  was  a  prebendary.  The 
two  names  Canon  and  Prebendary  belonged  to  the  same 
person  in  two  different  respects ;  he  was  a  canon  in  his 
relation  to  the  Cathedral,  and  he  was  a  prebendary  of  the 
particular  place  in  the  diocese  where  he  had  his  prebend  or 
endowment.4  The  canons  and  prebendaries  formed,  as 
already  said,  an  integral  part  of  the  Chapter. 

The  record  of  this  double  relation  survives  in  the  form 
with  which  every  prebendary  is  still  collated  to  his  canonry 
or  prebend.  He  is  instituted  thereby  to  a  particular 
prebend,  and  also  to  a  "stall  in  the  choir,  and  to  a  voice  in 
the  Chapter." 

Every  canon  had  a  right 5  to  take  part  in  the  deliberations 
of  the  Chapter  on  questions  of  general  interest  and  import- 
ance. This  right  is  still  recognized  in  other  Cathedrals  of 
the  old  foundation,  as  York,  Salisbury,  and  Lichfield.  If 

2  Some  idea  of  the  wealth  and  magnificence  of  Lincoln  Cathedral  in 
this  respect  may  be  gathered  from  the  inventories  of  its  sacred  vessels 
and  vestments  in  Dugdale's  "  Monasticon,"  vol.  viii.  1278 — 1286,  ed, 
Lond.  1846.    Cp.  the  "Laudum"  of  William  Alnwick,  p.  101. 

3  Le  Neve,  "  Fasti  Ecclesise,"  p.  153. 

4  A  canonry  (says  Bishop  Gibson,  "  Codes,"  p.  175)  is  the  name  of 
office ;  &  prebend  is  a  name  of  maintenance  or  benefice. 

5  The  limitation  of  this  may  be  seen  in  "  Novum  Registrum,"  p.  48. 


Constitution  of  Lincoln  Cathedral.  3 1 1 

any  prebendary  or  canon  resided  in  the  precincts/'  as  he 
might  do,  he  was  entitled  to  an  abode  there,  and  to  partici- 
pate in  the  daily  distributions,  and  in  the  divisible  corporate 
revenues  of  the  Cathedral. 

Some  of  the  fifty-two  canons  or  prebendaries  were 
continually  resident  at  the  Cathedral,  and  all  who  were  not 
resident  were  required  to  provide  representatives  or  vicars,7 
so  that  the  services  of  the  Cathedral  Church  might  never 
lack  the  full  complement  of  united  voices  singing  praise  to 
God.  All  the  canons  were  supposed  to  come,  as  occasion 
required,  from  their  various  abodes  to  their  sacred  home, 
the  Cathedral ; — like  the  Levites,  brought  together  from  the 
Levitical  cities  of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  to  their  religious  home 
at  Jerusalem. 

Thus  this  stately  Cathedral  of  Lincoln,  planted  on  its 
"sovereign  hill,"  and  looking  out  far  and  wide  upon  the 
city  beneath  it,  and  over  the  vast  plain  around  it,  and  being 
a  conspicuous  object  at  the  distance  of  many  miles,  was 
like  a  Christian  Parthenon  on  a  Christian  Acropolis ;  and 
by  reason  of  the  extent  of  its  influence  it  had,  as  it  were, 
a  spiritual  presence  commensurate  with  the  diocese.  The 
spiritual  life  of  the  Diocese  flowed  from  the  Cathedral  as  its 
fountain,  like  the  mystic  river  in  Ezekiel's  vision,  which 
welled  from  beneath  the  altar,8  and  watered  the  land,  and 
cleansed  the  Dead  Sea.  The  spiritual  light  of  the  Diocese 
radiated  from  the  Cathedral,  the  spiritual  affections  of  the 
Diocese  converged  towards  it,  and  the  spiritual  strength  of 
the  diocese  was  concentrated  in  it.  It  was  the  heart  from 
which  the  life-blood  flowed  by  arteries,  and  to  which  it  was 
conveyed  by  veins.    It  presented  to  the  eye  of  the  faithful 

8  St.  Hugh,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  a.d.  1186—1200,  required  them  to 
reside  ("  Magna  Vita,"  p.  132). 

7  See  "  Laudum,"  p.  103.  The  stalls  of  the  Vicars  in  Lincoln  Cathe- 
dral, beneath  the  stalls  of  their  respective  canons,  whose  deputies  they 
were,  remained  till  the  seventeenth  century,  and  may  be  seen  represented 
in  the  view  of  the  interior  of  the  Cathedral  in  Dugdale's  "  Monasticon," 
vol.  viii.  p.  1267.  Their  name  is  still  preserved  on  the  entrance  of  the 
buildings  at  the  south  side  of  the  Cathedral,  and  called  Vicars'  Court. 
The  term  Minor  Canon  is  unknown  to  our  Statutes. 

8  Ezek.  xlvii.  1,  10. 


312 


Miscellanies. 


an  image  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  as  described  by  the  prophet 
Isaiah,  as  a  living  thing,  going  forth  from  Zion  and  enfold- 
ing the  world.  "  The  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house  shall  be 
established  in  the  top  of  the  mountains,  and  shall  bo  exalted 
above  the  hills ;  and  all  nations  shall  flow  unto  it."  9 

But  we  must  now  turn  our  eyes  to  the  other  side  of  the 
picture. 

The  decay  of  our  Cathedral  institutions  is  due  to  the  same 
causes  as  the  weakness  of  our  parochial  system  in  former 
times — namely,  to  non-residence  and  pluralities. 

To  begin  with  the  Bishop. 

No  rule  of  residence  is  prescribed  to  him  in  our  Statutes; 
but  it  is  evident  from  them  that  he  was  expected  to  be  often 
present  in  the  Cathedral,  and  to  take  the  principal  part  in 
its  sacred  services ;  and  also  to  bring  the  Chapter  together 
for  consultation  from  time  to  time.  Bishop  Alnwick's 
Tower — still  standing  in  the  old  episcopal  Palace  at  Lincoln, 
and  shaded  by  its  stately  sycamore— and  the  remains  of  the 
chapel  erected  by  him  in  that  Palace,  where  he  resided  from 
1436  to  1449,  may  be  regarded  as  mementoes  of  his  desire 
to  comply  with  the  rules  laid  down  by  him  in  the  more 
enduring  structure  that  he  reared  in  the  digest  of  Statutes 
which  he  framed,  and  which  still  remains  unimpaired. 

Various  causes  prevented  the  efficient  discharge  of  the 
duties  of  episcopal  residence  and  personal  oversight.  The 
enormous  size  of  the  diocese,  containing  more  than  1250 
parishes,  occupied  the  time,  and  absorbed  the  care,  and 
exhausted  the  strength  of  the  Bishop.  The  episcopal  palace 
at  Lincoln  was  dismantled  by  the  civil  wars  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  old  episcopal  residences  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Lincoln,  at  Nettleham,  at  Stow,  at  Slea- 
ford,  at  Newark,  and  others  at  Liddington,  Woburn,  Banbury, 
and  Dorchester,  disappeared  or  were  in  ruins.  The  Bishop 
was  relegated  to  his  manor  of  Buckden  in  the  county  of 
Huntingdon.  All  honour  be  paid  to  such  Bishops  as  Robert 
Sanderson,  who,  as  his  diocesan  Register  shows,  strove 
9  Isaiah  ii.  2.  Micah  iv.  1. 


Causes  of  decay  of  CatJiedrals.  3 1 3 

nobly  against  those  difficulties,  and  who,  when  he  was  more 
than  seventy-three  years  of  age,  laboured  incessantly  to 
discharge  his  duties,  holding  no  less  than  seventy  ordinations, 
in  different  parts  of  the  diocese,  in  one  year,  till,  after  a 
little  more  than  two  years,  his  strength  failed,  and  he 
entered  into  his  rest  on  the  29th  January,  1663.  All  honour 
be  also  paid  to  such  Bishops  as  William  W ake  and  Edmund 
Gibson,  who  held  Visitations  of  their  Cathedral  Church,  and 
also  (as  their  Registers  prove)  collected  accurate  and  minute 
information  concerning  the  spiritual  condition  of  every 
parish  in  the  diocese. 

As  we  have  seen,  each  of  the  dignitaries  of  the  Cathedral 
had  specific  duties  assigned  and  appropriated  to  him  ;  and 
they  were  bound  to  reside  habitually,  in  order  that  those 
duties  might  be  effectually  performed.  This  was  the 
strength  of  our  Cathedral  system.  As  long  as  it  recognizes 
that  the  tenure  of  an  office  involves  the  discharge  of  definite 
duties  by  him  who  holds  it,  and  that,  therefore,  special 
qualifications  are  requisite  for  the  office,  fit  persons  will 
be  appointed  to  fill  it.  But  if  the  law  of  residence  be 
relaxed,  or  if  the  holders  of  dignities  be  distracted  by  various 
other  employments,  and  if,  in  our  capitular  body,  the  hand 
be  expected  to  do  the  work  of  the  foot,  and  the  eye  to 
perform  the  functions  of  the  ear,  then  the  duties  of  the  office 
will  fall  into  abeyance,  and  no  special  gifts  or  qualifications 
will  be  regarded  as  necessary  for  the  holders  of  it ;  and  in 
the  end  some  men  may  perhaps  think  little  of  the  office,  and 
more  of  the  benefice,  and  ultimately  the  office  itself  may  be 
swallowed  up  by  the  benefice. 

This  has  been  the  cause  of  the  abuse  of  Cathedral 
patronage — an  abuse  which  in  our  own  days  has  led  to  the 
spoliation  and  dismemberment  of  our  capitular  bodies.  It 
was  alleged,  doubtless  unfairly  in  many  cases  (but  it  is  a 
law  of  great  corporations,  that  the  good  members  suffer 
with  the  bad),  that  the  holders  of  these  benefices  had  no 
special  work  to  do ;  that  their  offices  were  mere  sinecures ; 
and  therefore,  any  one  was  good  enough  to  fill  them. 
This  brought  them  into  contempt.  There  was  little  public 
sympathy  with  them ;  and  they  fell  an  easy  prey  into 


314 


Miscellanies. 


the  hands  of  Church  reformers.  The  revenues  of  Cathedrals 
were  taken  away  from  them,  in  order  to  be  bestowed  on 
those  who  bore  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day  in  the  cure 
of  souls  in  our  populous  cities.  No  great  institution  is  ruined 
except  by  itself.  The  calamities  which  befell  our  monastic 
orders  in  the  sixteenth  century  were  due  to  the  abuses  in 
our  monasteries  ;  and  the  disasters  which  more  recently  over- 
took our  Cathedral  bodies  arose  in  great  measure  from  their 
culpable  neglect  of  their  own  laws. 

Let  us  therefore  not  speak  harshly  of  the  framers  of  the 
celebrated  legislative  statute  of  1840/  which  bore  some 
resemblance  to  the  Acts  for  the  Dissolution  of  Monasteries 
three  centuries  before,  and  which  introduced  a  new  era  into 
the  history  of  our  Cathedral  institutions. 

The  framers  of  that  measure  lived  in  a  time  of  great 
religious  and  political  excitement.  There  was  a  loud  cry 
for  the  improvement  of  the  spiritual  condition  of  our  popu- 
lous cities.  That  improvement  could  not  be  effected 
without  additional  endowments  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
ministry  there.  Men  saw  that  the  wealth  of  our  Cathedrals 
was  in  the  hands  of  many  who  did  little  service  to  the 
Church,  and  reflected  little  credit  upon  it.  The  Cathedrals 
were  objects  of  attack,  and  were  exposed  to  a  pitiless  storm, 
because  of  their  wealth  and  inefficiency.  They  were  a  cause 
of  weakness  to  the  Church.  She  was  like  the  tempest- 
tossed  ship,  in  which  St.  Paul  sailed  from  Myra  to  Malta,  of 
which  we  read  that  in  the  hour  of  peril,  "  the  sailors 
lightened  the  ship,  and  east  out  the  wheat  into  the  sea." 2 
Happily  the  wheat  of  our  Cathedrals  was  not  cast  into  the 
sea,  but  was  used  in  providing  food  for  hungry  souls.  Our 
legislators  determined  to  apply  a  very  large  portion  ef  the 
revenues  of  Cathedrals  to  the  relief  of  the  spiritual  destitu- 
tion of  our  large  towns,  and  to  the  sustentation  of  the 
parochial  clergy  ministering  in  them.  They  were  assured 
by  the  leading  statesmen  of  the  day — the  Duke  of  Welling- 

1  3  &  4  Vict.  cap.  113,  passed  11th  August,  1840.  The  other  recent 
statutes  which  concern  Cathedrals  are  4  &  5  Vict.  cap.  39 ;  5  &  6  Vict, 
cap.  26,  cap.  108  ;  6  &  7  Vict.  cap.  77. 

s  Acts  xxvii.  38. 


Cathedral  Act""  of  1840. 


315 


ton  and  Sir  Robert  Peel — that,  if  the  Church  made  this 
surrender  of  a  portion  of  her  property  for  this  purpose, 
the  Legislature  would  co-operate  with  her  by  grants  from 
other  sources.    This  has  not  been  done. 

It  is  to  be  deplored,  that  the  Ecclesiastical  legislators  of 
that  day  did  not  make  themselves  acquainted,3  as  they 
might  have  done,  and  as  was  done  fourteen  years  after- 
wards by  the  Cathedral  Commissioners,4  with  the  con- 
stitution of  Cathedrals,  and  with  the  distinctive  character 
and  condition  and  requirements  of  each  Cathedral  Church, 
considered  specially  and  severally  by  itself,  and  that  they 
did  not  deal  with  each  Cathedral  accordingly.  But  they 
passed  one  general  sweeping  Act,  in  which  all  Cathedral 
bodies  were  stretched  upon  one  Procrustean  bed,  and 
were  reduced  to  a  rigid  uniformity. 

The  confusion  that  has  been  thus  introduced  into  the 
history  of  English  Cathedrals  is  a  great  evil.  For  example, 
it  is  well  known,  that  in  Lincoln  and  all  the  Cathedrals  of 
the  old  foundation,  the  precentor  is  the  principal  canon ; 
and  that  in  those  old  Cathedrals  there  were  priest  vicars, 
but  not  minor  canons.  But  the  Legislature  has  borrowed 
the  words  "  Minor  Canon  "  from  the  Cathedrals  of  the  new 
foundation,  where  the  precentor  is  not  a  canon  but  a  minor 
canon,  and  has  imported  those  words  into  Lincoln  Cathedral 
and  other  Cathedrals  of  the  old  foundation,  where  the 
precentor  is  the  first  among  the  canons.  In  this,  as  in 
various  other  respects,  it  has  showed  little  knowledge  of  our 
Cathedrals,  and  less  sympathy  with  them. 

In  that  Act  of  1840,  the  Legislature  assigned  to  every 

3  As  a  specimen  (I  regret  to  say  it)  of  this  deficiency  in  the  "Church 
Commission,"  which  framed  the  Eeports  on  which  the  Act  of  1840  was 
founded,  the  following  extract  from  their  Second  Report  (p.  9)  may  be 
quoted : — "  The  principal  distinctions  between  the  two  foundations  (of 
Cathedrals)  which  bear  upon  the  subjects  of  the  present  report  are  these. 
The  old  comprise  not  only  the  Dean  and  canons-residentiary,  who  comp ose 
the  Chapters  of  each,  but  various  other  prebendaries."  The  Report  does 
not  acknowledge  the  prebendaries  as  canons,  or  as  having  any  place  or 
voice  in  the  Chapter.    Compare  above,  p.  307. 

4  In  1852—1855.  As  one  of  the  members  of  the  "  Cathedral  Com- 
mission," I  feel  bound  to  say  that  a  principal  part  of  the  work  was  done 
by  the  late  Canon  Selwyn  of  Ely. 


316 


Miscellanies. 


Dean  of  a  Cathedral  a  term  of  eight  mouths'  residence,  but 
it  did  uot  assign  to  him  any  specific  duties  to  be  done  while 
he  was  resident.  On  the  other  hand,  it  allowed  him  to  be 
despoiled  of  those  honourable  and  useful  fuuctions  which 
formerly  belonged  to  him,  and  imparted  dignity  and 
efficiency  to  his  office.  In  many  Cathedrals  the  Dean  pos- 
sessed archidiaconal  jurisdiction  over  the  city,  and  in  the 
numerous  parishes  connected  with  the  Cathedral  in  all  parts 
of  the  diocese.  At  Lincoln  he  had  the  cure  of  souls  in  the 
precincts,  and  of  all  that  large  body  of  persons  who  were 
engaged  in  the  services  of  the  Cathedral  Church.  But  by 
the  diminution  of  their  number,  and  by  the  sequestration  of 
the  prebendal  endowments,  he  found  himself  without  a 
parish,  as  well  as  without  an  archdeaconry ;  and  the  exercise 
of  his  authority  is  confined  within  a  narrow  sphere,  very 
different  from  that  assigned  to  him  in  former  times.5 

Again,  by  reducing  the  number  of  the  canons-residentiary 
to  four,6  in  most  Cathedrals,  and  by  specifying  three  months 
as  their  term  of  residence,  the  Legislature  seems  to  many 
persons  to  authorize,  if  not  to  prescribe,  nine  months'  non- 
residence  for  the  so-called  residentiaries.  The  requirement 
of  one  quarter  of  a  year's  presence  is  interpreted  by  some  to 
legalize  three-quarters  of  a  year's  absence.1  This  is  exactly 
the  reverse  of  the  definition  of  the  residence  of  a  parish 
priest,  who  cannot  be  absent  from  his  benefice  for  more  than 

6  Our  late  revered  and  beloved  Chancellor  (Chancellor  Massingberd)  in 
his  Essay  in  Dean  Howson's  volume,  pp.  175,  176,  says  that  "  the  Dean 
who  had  archidiaconal  jurisdiction  is  now  left  without  the  slightest  power 
beyond  the  walls  of  the  Cathedral." 

6  One  canon-residentiary  was  added  at  Lincoln ;  but,  as  Bishop  Kaye 
well  observed  in  his  "  Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,"  p.  31, 
note,  this  was  only  a  step  towards  restoration  : — "  We  learn  from  Browne 
Willis  that,  before  the  Reformation,  there  were  never  fewer  than  six 
residentiaries  at  Lincoln." 

7  It  ought,  however,  injustice  to  the  Legislature,  to  be  stated  that  the 
requirement  is  "three  months  at  least"  (3  &  4  Vict.  cap.  113,  sec.  3), 
which  is  quite  compatible  with  the  requirement  of  some  local  statutes 
that  the  term  of  residence  should  be  eight  months.  In  their  Second 
Report  (p.  11)  the  Church  Commissioners,  proposed  that  alterations 
should  be  made  in  the  local  statutes  to  reduce  the  term  of  residence  to 
this  uniform  standard  of  three  months.  Happily  this  has  not  been  done. 
The  "  Cathedral  Commissioners  "  recommended  nine  months'  residence. 


Residence  of  Canons.  3 1  7 

three  months  in  a  year.  The  term  "  canon  in  residence " 
seems  also  to  many  persons  to  suggest  that  the  other  three 
canons-residentiai-y  are  not  in  residence,  nor  expected  to  be 
so ;  and  the  one  canon  in  residence  (pardon  me  for  speaking 
plainly),  who  in  some  Cathedrals  is  non-resident  for  nine 
months  in  the  year,  is  supposed  to  represent  the  whole  body 
of  a  Chapter,  consisting,  it  may  be,  as  ours  does,  of  more 
than  fifty  persons  j  and  the  whole  Chapter  of  the  Cathedral 
is  supposed  to  be  concentrated  in  him. 

Besides,  by  limiting  the  name  canon  and  canonry  to  the 
four  residentiaries,  each  of  whom,  some  think,  may  be  non- 
resident for  nine  months,  they  have  practically  deprived  the 
other  canons — more  than  fifty  in  number  in  this  Cathedral — 
of  a  title,  that  of  canon,  which  had  belonged  to  them  for  more 
than  seven  hundred  years ;  and  by  alienating  their  property 
they  have  made  them  virtually  to  cease  to  be  prebendaries 
also,  as  well  as  canons,  and  have  left  them  with  what  is 
called  an  "  unendowed  prebend,"  which  seems  to  be  a 
contradiction  in  terms.8 

Brethren,  I  have  felt  it  a  duty  to  speak  freely  on  these 
things,  because  there  can  be  no  hope  of  a  remedy  for  an 
evil  unless  we  look  the  evil  fairly  and  fully  in  the  face.  If 
we  resolve  to  do  nothing,  let  us  be  sure  that  other  persons 
will  not  be  equally  content  to  sit  still.  Let  us  be  thankful 
that  much  has  been  already  done  in  recent  times  for  the 
improvement  of  the  noble  fabrics  and  sacred  services  of 
some  of  our  Cathedral  Churches,  especially  our  own.  But 
much  remains  to  be  done  for  the  quickening  of  their  spiritual 
life ;  and  if  we  do  not  do  what  we  can  to  correct  abuses  and 
to  strengthen  the  things  that  remain,  and  encourage  others 
to  do  so,  there  is  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  the  legislative 
experiment  of  1840  may  be  repeated,  with  still  more  dis- 
astrous results,  at  no  distant  time. 

What,  then,  is  the  course  to  be  pursued  ? 
In  order  that  a  reply  may  be  given  to  this  question,  you, 
have  been  gathered  together  to-day. 

Happily  for  us,  our  Cathedral  system  is  not  one  of  in- 
8  A  canonry  is  an  office  ;  a  prebend  is  a  benefice.    See  note,  p.  310. 


3i8 


Miscellanies. 


flexible  stiffness  and  rigid  constraint,  but  of  pliant  elasticity 
and  expansiveness.  We  possess  ample  independent  powers 
in  our  Statutes  for  improving  our  own  system  by  spon- 
taneous action  and  internal  reforms,  guided  and  regulated 
by  those  principles  which  are  enunciated  in  our  laws,  and 
embodied  in  our  constitution. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  Bishop  of  the  diocese, 
acting  in  concert  with  the  Dean  and  Chapter  (in  which  I 
include  all  the  canons  or  prebendaries  of  the  Cathedral), 
can  modify  our  laws  and  usages  without  any  extrinsic  aid, 
in  any  way  not  contrariant  to  the  law  of  the  land.9  And 
we  have  a  right  to  claim  of  the  Legislature  that  we  may 
have  free  scope  for  the  exercise  of  these  inherent  powers, 
before  any  application  is  made  of  coercion  upon  us  from 
without. 

Let  me  therefore  now  offer  a  few  suggestions. 

First,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  Bishop  of  the  diocese  is 
bound  to  promote  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  constitution 
set  forth  in  our  Statutes. 

The  Bishop  of  a  diocese  is  called  a  Father  in  God,  and 
the  Cathedral  Church  is  called  the  Mother  Church  of  the 
diocese.  It  is  the  parish  church  of  all  in  the  diocese.'  Its 
influence  ought  to  be  felt  in  every  part  of  the  diocese.  It 
is  the  Bishop's  duty  to  endeavour  that  these  names  may  not 
be  mere  idle  words,  but  that,  by  God's  help,  the  Bishop, 
when  occupying  his  appointed  place  in  his  Cathedral,  may 
be  a  personal  centre  of  unity,  and  that  the  Cathedral  may 
be  a  local  centre  of  unity,  to  the  diocese.  It  is  his  duty, 
and  ought  to  be  his  happiness,  to  do  all  that  in  him  lies, 
that  the  capitular  and  parochial  elements  of  the  diocese  may 
not  be  antagonistic  to  one  another,  but  may  work  harmo- 
niously and  lovingly  together  for  the  same  blessed  ends — 
the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  His  Church.  He  will 
therefore  rejoice  in  every  occasion  which  brings  the  parochial 
clergy,  and  especially  the  canons  or  prebendaries  of  the 

9  In  3  &  4  Vict.  cap.  113,  sec.  47,  there  is  a  recognition  of  this  power 
for  particular  purposes,  and  with  some  additional  conditions. 
1  Bishop  Gibson,  "  Codex,"  tit.  viii.  cap.  i.  p.  171. 


Episcopal  jurisdiction.  3 1 9 

diocese,  into  union  with  the  Cathedral,  and  with  himself  and 
every  other  member  of  the  Cathedral,  for  united  worship 
and  counsel.  v 

In  some  Cathedrals,  difficulties  have  arisen  from  a  want 
of  a  clear  definition  of  the  relations  of  the  Bishop  and  Dean 
in  the  Cathedral  Church.  Nothing  is  more  injurious  than 
vagueness  and  uncertainty  in  such  matters  as  these.  It  will 
be  my  duty  and  happiness  to  communicate  with  my  very 
reverend  brother,  the  Dean  (in  whom  I  rejoice  to  recognize 
a  college  associate  of  forty  years  ago),  with  entire  frankness 
on  this  and  every  other  subject  which  may  concern  our 
position  and  functions  in  this  House  of  God,  in  which  I  trust 
we  may  walk  together  as  friends ; 2  and  let  me  not  disguise 
from  him  and  from  you  my  opinion  that  the  Bishop  is  as 
much  the  Ordinary  of  his  Cathedral  as  he  is  iu  any  church 
of  the  diocese.  This  question  has  recently  been  investigated 
by  eminent  canonists  (Sir  Bobert  Phillimore  and  Dr. 
Tristram),3  and  has  been  determined  in  that  sense/  I  think 
that  even  a  cursory  view  of  our  own  Statutes  would  lead  to 
the  same  conclusion.5 

Next,  as  has  been  already  said,  the  Dean  formerly  dis- 
charged important  pastoral  functions  in  the  city,  and 
exercised  a  wide  archidiaconal  jurisdiction  in  the  diocese. 
He  was  seen  from  time  to  time  in  all  parts  of  the  diocese. 

2  Ps.  lv.  15. 

3  Whose  opinion,  dated  Doctors'  Commons,  December  9th,  1864,  has 
been  printed. 

4  By  canon  law  and  statute  law  in  all  cases,  whether  in  Cathedrals  or 
parish  churches,  if  any  difference  or  dispute  arises  as  to  the  mode  of 
conducting  the  Divine  Service,  the  appeal  is  to  "  the  Bishop  of  the 
diocese,"  who  is  to  take  order  for  appeasing  and  quieting  the  same.  '  See 
the  prefatory  rubric  in  our  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  "  Concerning  the 
Service  of  the  Church."  The  Dean  and  Chapter  (says  Bishop  Gibson, 
"Codex,"  tit.  viii.  cap.  ii.  p,  174)  may  not  alter  the  ancient  and  approved 
usages  of  the  Church  without  the  consent  of  the  Bishop.  I  need  not 
refer  to  sect,  17  of  "  the  Public  Worship  Regulation  Act,"  37  &  38 
Vict.  1874. 

5  See,  for  instance,  "Novum  Registrum,"  pp.  4,  10,  and  2o — 22  :  the 
Dean  takes  an  oath  of  canonical  obedience  to  the  Bishop ;  and  see  the 
"  Laudum,"  p.  96,  line  9,  where  the  Bishop  is  called  "  Ordinarius  ;  "  and 
compare  the  observations  in  the  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  exxx.  No.  25!), 
pp.  239,  240,  and  the  late  Chancellor  Massingberd's  Essay,  p.  180. 


320 


Miscellanies. 


May  it  not  be  suggested,  that  unity  and  efficiency  would 
be  imparted  to  the  parochial  system  of  our  city,  if  the  clergy 
of  the  several  parishes  were  brought  together  under  the 
presidency  of  the  Dean,  and  might  enjoy  the  benefit  of  his 
counsel  and  encouragement  in  all  matters  of  parochial  and 
public  interest — moral,  social,  and  religious  ?  One  weak- 
ness, especially  in  our  great  cities,  proceeds  in  a  great 
measure  from  the  isolation  of  the  clergy,  and  from  lack  of 
clerical  and  lay  conference  and  co-operation.  It  can  hardly 
be  expected  that  the  parochial  clergy  of  a  city  will  act 
together  so  harmoniously  under  the  headship  of  one  of  their 
own  body,  as  under  the  guidance  of  one  raised  above  them 
in  rank  and  dignity.  It  is,  I  think,  to  be  desired  that  the 
Dean  of  every  Cathedral  Church  should  be  also  the  Dean  of 
the  city;  and  that  the  clergy  of  the  churches  of  the  city 
should  look  to  the  Cathedral  Church  with  filial  reverence 
and  affection  as  the  parish  church  of  the  diocese,  and 
especially  of  the  city  in  which  it  is. 

Next,  in  the  words  of  our  late  beloved  Chancellor 
Massingberd,  "  a  specific  office  ought  to  be  assigned  to  each 
canonry,  and  the  fulfilment  of  its  duties  to  be  strictly 
enforced." 6  This  can  be  done  by  us  without  further 
legislation.  Indeed,  such  an  assignment  of  specific  duties 
to  Canons,  and  such  a  performance  of  them,  are  clearly 
prescribed  by  our  Statutes. 

The  same  learned  writer  says,"  "  the  prebendaries  are  all 
canons,  and  in  the  greater  Chapter  they  have  equal  votes ; 
but  it  very  early  became  the  practice  for  some  of  them  to 
undertake  a  definite  term  of  residence,  and  to  be  entitled  to 
a  share  in  the  capitular  revenues." 

These  words  suggest  a  double  action  on  our  part. 

First,  let  all  the  prebendaries  or  canons  of  the  Cathedral 
be  frankly  and  unreservedly  recognized  as  brethren  by  the 
residentiaries.  Let  the  words  of  the  ancient  form  by  which 
the  prebendaries  are  collated  to  their  canonries, — "We 

fi  Chancellor  Massingberd,  in  Dean  Howson's  volume  on  "  Cathedrals," 
pp.  177,  178. 
-  Ibid.  p.  177. 


Practical  Suggestions. 


321 


assign  to  thee  a  voice  in  the  Chapter,  and  a  stall  in  the 
choir," — be  made  a  reality.  Let  the  prebendaries  be 
gathered  together  from  time  to  time  into  this  stately  and 
beautiful  Chapter-house, — restored  to  its  ancient  beauty, — 
for  united  consultation  and  action  on  matters  concerning  the 
welfare  of  the  Cathedral  and  the  diocese. 

This  can  be  done  without  any  fresh  legislation.  In  fact, 
it  is  expressly  prescribed  by  our  Statutes. 

Who  can  tell,  my  brethren,  whether  if  these  deliberative 
functions  had  been  exercised,  and  this  joint  action  had  been 
resorted  to,  when  Wesleyanism  first  arose  in  this  county, 
and  was  spreading  itself  over  the  diocese,  the  good  elements 
in  that  great  religious  movement  might  not  have  been 
cherished  and  fostered  by  the  Church,  and  the  errors  and 
extravagances  of  it  have  been  corrected  and  controlled  ? 
And  who  can  say  whether  the  opportunity  has  irrevocably 
passed  away  for  such  conciliatory  action  as  this  with  regard 
to  the  great  body  of  Methodism,  or  at  least  with  respect  to 
some  leading  members  of  it  ? 

Next,  let  some  of  the  prebendaries  be  enabled  to  come 
into  residence.  Formerly,  during  many  centuries,  they 
were  entitled  to  dwellings,  if  they  signified  a  desire  to 
reside ;  and  in  that  case  they  shared  in  the  daily  distribution 
and  in  the  divisible  revenues  of  the  Chapter.  But  a  change 
has  taken  place.  The  prebendaries  of  our  Church  pay  fees 
(about  eight  pounds)  on  their  admission  to  their  canoury  or 
"  unendowed  prebend,"  and  those  among  them  who  have 
preaching  turns  are  obliged  to  defray  the  expenses  of  their 
journey  to  and  from  the  Cathedral. 

It  is  much  to  be  wished  that  in  the  negotiations  of 
capitular  bodies  with  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners  for 
the  transfer  of  capitular  estates  to  them,  some  provision 
were  made  for  the  prebendaries.  Every  prebendal  stall 
ought  to  have  some  endowment  attached  to  it;  and  the 
Legislature  has  happily  provided 8  that  under  certain  con- 
ditions our  prebends  or  canonries — which,  let  us  remember, 
are  not  suppressed,  but  suspended — may  be  re-endowed 


8  3  &  4  Vict.  cap.  113,  sec.  20,  and  36  &  37  Vict.  cap.  39. 
VOL.  III.  Y 


32  2 


Miscellanies. 


and  revived.  Thus  additional  vigour  might  bo  infused  into 
the  body  of  residentiaries,  and  additional  work  might  be 
done  by  it.  Without  going  outside  of  our  Cathedral  doors, 
let  me  specify  the  restoration  of  the  early  daily  Matins,9  with 
a  short  exposition  of  Scripture,  and  another  Service  on 
Sundays  of  a  congregational  character,  with  a  Sermon. 
The  Church  accommodation  in  the  City  of  Lincoln  falls 
lamentably  short  of  the  spiritual  wants  of  its  increasing 
population.  Not  one-sixth  of  that  population  is  found  in 
our  churches  on  the  Lord's  Day.  We  need  more  churches, 
and  we  need  more  frequent  Services  in  our  existing  churches. 
Let  our  Cathedral  set  an  example  in  this  respect.1 

The  Cathedral  Church  ought  to  be  an  object  of  interest 
to  every  parish  in  the.  diocese,  and  to  exercise  its  influence 
there.  Annual  gatherings  here  of  parish  choirs  and  of  our 
Church  teachers  and  Church  workers  would  do  much  to 
diffuse  that  influence,  and  to  spread  that  interest,  and 
bring  great  blessings. 

To  take  a  wider  range,  the  performance  of  missionary 
work  in  our  great  towns,  and  the  encouragement  of  religious 
education  in  our  schools,  would  afford  ample  scope  for  a 
band  of  zealous  men  going  forth  from  our  Cathedral  as  from 
a  centre  of  spiritual  life. 

My  reverend  brethren, — Let  me  commend  these  matters 
to  you  ;  and,  in  doing  so,  let  me  ask  your  attention  to  the 
Table  of  Preaching  Turns  settled  by  a  decree  of  Bishop 
Sanderson2  in  1662.  It  may  be  submitted  for  consideration 
whether  some  clauses  of  that  decree,  which  have  fallen  into 
disuse,  might  not  be  revived  and  put  in  force  ;  and  whether 
also  some  modifications  of  that  table,  which  seem  to 
be  required  by  change  of  circumstances,  might  not  be 
adopted.3 

9  This  has  now  been  done. 

1  This  has  now  been  done. 

2  Nov.  1662.  See  Bishop  Keunett's  "  Register,"  p.  825.  "  Stahitum 
et  Decretum  Eoberti  Lincolniensis  Episcopi  de  annuis  Prajbendariorum 
concionibus  in  Ecclesia  Cathedrali  solemniter  habendis ;  dat.  apnd  mane- 
rium  nostrum  de  Buckden,  7  Nov.  1662."  Cf.  "  Canons  of  1603,"  can.  43. 

3  This  has  now  been  done. 


Articles  of  Inquiry  at  the  Cathedral.  323 


I  will  now  proceed  to  put  into  your  hands  copies  of  such 
"  Articles  of  Inquiry "  as  I  have  directed  to  be  prepared, 
and  to  be  exhibited  to  you ;  and  I  request  you  to  have  the 
goodness  to  supply  me  with  answers  to  those  Articles  on 
the  day  which  will  be  named  in  the  schedule  of  prorogation 
of  our  present  proceedings. 

And  may  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the 
Holy  Ghost,  Three  Persons  and  One  God,  bless  you  and 
keep  you,  guide  and  prosper  you  in  all  your  endeavours  to 
promote  His  Glory  and  the  good  of  His  Church,  and  the 
increase  of  unity  and  brotherly  love  among  ourselves,  now 
and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


ARTICLES  OF  INQUIRY 

Exhibited  to  the  Dean,  Canons  Residential^,  Canons  non-Residentiary 
or  Prebendaries,  Priests  Vicars  or  Minor  Canons,  Vicars  Choral,  and  other 
Ministers  and  Members  of  the  Cathedral  Church  of  S.  Mary,  Lincoln,  at 
the  Visitation  of  the  Right  Reverend  Father  in  God,  Christopher,  by 
Divine  permission  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  Consecration, 
and  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy -three. 

1.  Do  the  members  of  the  Capitular  foundation  correspond  at  the  present 

time  to  those  appointed  in  the  Statutes  ;  and  if  not,  what  alterations 
have  been  made  in  this  respect,  and  for  what  purpose  ? 

2.  (a)  Are  the  Services  of  the  Church  duly  performed  in  the  Cathedral  as 

prescribed  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer? 

(b)  How  often  is  the  Holy  Communion  administered  ? 

Are  the  Holy  Days  of  the  Church  observed  ?  and  is  notice  given  of  them 
according  to  the  Rubric  ? 

(c)  How  is  the  Offertory  applied  ?    Is  any  account  published  of  its 
disposal  ? 

(d)  Is  the  "Table  of  Preaching  Turns"  observed  as  settled  by  Bishop 
Sanderson  in  1662  ? 

Are  the  Prebendaries  permitted  to  exchange  their  turns  as  allowed  in 
that  order? 

Are  the  fines,  if  incurred  for  non-preaching,  applied  in  the  manner  there 
prescribed  P 

(e)  Is  suitable  accommodation  afforded  to  the  congregations  in  the 
Cathedral? 

How  many  will  the  Choir  contain,  as  now  arranged  P 
Is  due  provision  made  for  their  kneeling  in  Public  Prayer? 
(/)  Is  the  Cathedral,  or  any  part  of  it  available  for  Private  Prayer  ? 

T  2 


324 


Miscellanies. 


{g)  Does  it  ever  happen  that  Divine  Service  in  the  Cathedral  is  left 
without  the  attendance  of  any  Canon  in  the  Choir?  (Statutes,  p.  41.) 
(h)  Is  there  any  Service  of"  Early  Matins"  in  the  Cathedral? 
If  not,  how  long  has  it  been  discontinued  ? 

(k)  Do  the  Dignitaries  of  the  Cathedral  preach  in  those  places  whence 

the  revenues  of  the  Church  are  derived  ?    (Canon  43.) 
(I)  Could  the  Nave  of  the  Cathedral  be  made  more  available  for  special 

Services  ? 

(n>)  Is  there  any  Voluntary  Choir  connected  with  the  Cathedral  ? 

3.  Do  the  " principales  persona,"  specified  in  the  Statutes,  discharge  the 

proper  duties  respectively  assigned  to  them  therein,  as  far  as  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case  allow  ? 

4.  What  is  the  statutable  residence  required  of  the  " principales  persona," 

and  is  it  duly  kept? 

5.  (a)  Is  the  "  Canon  in  Residence  "  authorized  to  supersede  a  "  princi- 

palis persona" — also  in  residence — in  the  discharge  of  those  special 
duties  which  are  assigned  to  such  "principalis  persona"  by  the 
Statutes  ? 

(b)  What  is  the  statutable  definition  of  the  word  Chapter  1  (Statutes, 
p.  28.) 

(c)  How  far  has  it  been  modified  in  consequence  of  recent  legislation  ? 

(d)  Are  the  non-residentiary  Canons  summoned  to  Capitular  Meet- 
ings ?    (P.  39.) 

(e)  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  words,  "  We  assign  thee  a  place  and 
voice  in  the  Chapter,"  which  are  used  at  their  Collation  and  Installa- 
tion ? 

(f)  Have  you  any  suggestions  to  offer  as  to  the  benefits  derivable  from 
Capitular  Meetings  for  deliberation  on  matters  affecting  the  welfare  of 
the  Church  and  the  Diocese,  and  for  affording  advice  and  help  to  the 
Bishop  ? 

6.  When  Canons  non-residentiary  are  present  in  their  stalls  in  the  Choir, 

are  they  invited  to  take  a  part  in  the  Divine  Service  of  the  Church  ? 

7.  Who  has  the  custody  of  the  common  seal  of  the  Chapter  ? 

Is  the  Statute  respecting  it  complied  with  ?    (P.  21,  p.  50,  p.  106.) 

8.  Has  any  attempt  been  made  to  apply  the  powers  for  the  removal  of 

suspension  of  Canonries  under  the  provisions  of  3  &  4  Vict.  cap.  113, 
sec.  20  ? 

9.  Have  the  requirements  of  that  Act  (sec.  44)  with  regard  to  the  disposal 

of  patronage  been  complied  with  ? 
Have  the  provisions  of  that  Act  (sec.  47)  been  resorted  to  for  the 
alteration  of  the  Statutes  as  to  the  disposal  of  patronage  or  other 
purposes  specified  in  the  Act  ? 

10.  What  are  the  stipends  of  the  Priest  Vicars  ? 
Are  they  provided  with  residences  ? 

Are  they  responsible  for  repairs  of  them  and  for  dilapidations? 

11.  Are  the  Cathedral  Church  and  the  Buildings  belonging  to  the  Dean 
and  Chapter  insured  against  fire  ? 

12.  What  are  the  emoluments  of  the  Vicars  Choral  ? 


Articles  of  Inquiry  at  the  Cathedral.  325 


What  are  the  regulations  for  their  due  attendance  in  the  Choir  at  Divine 
Service  ? 

Are  they  habitual  Communicants  in  the  Cathedral  ? 
Is  any  provision  made  for  their  retirement,  when  incapacitated  by 
old  age  or  other  infirmity  ? 

13.  What  are  the  emoluments  of  the  Choristers  ? 

Are  the  statutable  requirements  for  their  moral  and  religious  education, 
and  for  their  board  and  lodging  in  the  precincts,  and  for  their  superin- 
tendence duly  complied  with  ?    (Statutes,  p.  70.) 

Is  any  provision  made  for  them  on  their  leaving  the  Choir  ? 

14.  What  are  the  stipends  of  the  Masters  of  the  Free  Grammar  School  ? 
Is  the  scale  of  fees  for  instruction  in  it  so  regulated  as  to  make  it  ac- 
cessible generally  to  the  children  of  the  middle  classes  of  the  City  ? 

Have  any  exhibitions  been  founded  on  it  for  the  maintenance  of  scholars 
at  the  school,  or  at  the  Universities? 

15.  Are  the  records  and  archives  of  the  Chapter  kept  in  safety  and  in  good 
order,  and  duly  arranged  and  indexed  ? 

16.  Is  the  Library  accessible  to  the  Clergy  of  the  City  and  Diocese,  and 
to  the  public  ? 

Are  the  Books  lent,  and  on  what  security  ? 

Has  the  Library  any  fund  for  its  support  and  improvement  ? 

17.  Has  the  liability  to  repair  the  Chancels  of  the  Churches  belonging  to 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  been  transferred  to  the  Ecclesiastical  Com- 
missioners, or  does  it  still  remain  with  the  Capitular  body  ? 

18.  Has  any  endeavour  been  made  to  establish  a  Seminary  for  the  training 
of  Candidates  for  Holy  Orders  in  connexion  with  the  Cathedral,  and, 
if  so,  with  what  success  ? 

Have  Theological  Lectures  been  given  in  the  Cathedral,  as  prescribed 
by  the  Statutes  ? 

19.  In  the  answers  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter  to  the  Cathedral  Commis- 
sioners in  1853  (p.  258),  the  following  are  specified  as  statutable 
officers  of  the  Cathedral :  —  "  The  Chapter  Clerk  ;  the  Receiver- 
General  ;  the  Clerk  of  the  Fabric ;  the  Sacrist ;  the  Succentor ;  the 
Organist ;  the  Master  of  the  Choristers ;  the  Vice-Chancellor ;  the 
Lay  Sacrist ;  the  Senior  Verger  ;  the  Junior  Verger ;  two  Porters  ; 
two  Stall-Keepers ;  the  Surveyor  of  the  Chapter  Estates ;  the  Sur- 
veyor of  the  Fabric." 

Have  you  any  remarks  to  offer  on  the  stipends  or  duties  of  these 
Officers  ? 

20.  Have  you  any  suggestions  to  offer  to  the  Bishop  with  a  view  of 
increasing  the  efficiency,  and  of  strengthening  the  connexion  of  the 
Cathedral  Church  and  the  Capitular  body  with  the  City  and  the 
Diocese  ? 


326 


Miscellanies. 


STUDIES  OP  THE  CLERGY. 

The  following  words,  on  this  same  subject,  were  addressed 
to  the  Clergy  of  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln  in  1873. 

The  Diocese  of  Lincoln  contains  rather  more  than  800 
parishes.  Of  these  some,  especially  in  Nottinghamshire, 
have  large  populations  :  others,  particularly  in  Lincolnshire, 
though  extensive,  are  thinly  inhabited.  In  both  these 
classes  of  parishes  the  clergy  are  liable  to  be  drawn  away 
from  the  studies  of  their  sacred  profession. 

In  the  more  populous  parishes  their  time  is  so  much  taken 
up,  and  their  minds  distracted,  by  the  details,  often  secular, 
of  their  daily  work,  that  it  is  difficult  for  them  to  obey  the 
Apostle's4  precept :  "  Give  attendance  to  reading,  to  exhor- 
tation, to  doctrine  ;  meditate  on  these  things ;  give  thyself 
wholly  to  them,  that  thy  profiting  may  appear  to  all." 
Consequently,  in  such  cases,  the  teaching  from  the  pulpit  is 
apt  to  become  meagre  and  jejune,  or  to  spend  itself  in 
passionate  appeals,  which  excite  the  emotions  of  the  hearers, 
but  do  little  to  convince  their  reason,  or  to  refute  popular 
errors,  or  to  confirm  them  in  the  faith,  and  to  build  them 
up  on  the  solid  foundation  of  Christian  doctrine  and 
practice. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  wished  that  in  an  age  like  the  present 
— of  eager  inquiry,  restless  speculation,  philosophical 
scepticism,  bold  unbelief,  and  consequent  licentiousness  in 
religion,  morals,  and  politics — the  Clergy  of  our  great  towns 
were  in  a  condition  to  exercise  that  salutary  influence  on 
the  minds  of  the  people  which  is  so  much  needed  by  society, 
and  which  they  ought  to  possess,  as  the  national  teachers 
of  Christianity,  and  as  the  appointed  champions  of  the 
Faith. 

May  it  not  be  hoped  that  the  laity  in  populous  places 
may  be  induced  to  relieve  the  clergy  from  the  care  of 
"  serving  tables,"  5  and  that  the  clergy  may  be  enabled  to 
devote  themselves  earnestly  to  the  study  of  Theology,  the 
noblest  of  all  sciences  ?   Let  me  be  allowed  to  invite  attention 


4  1  Tim.  iv.  13,  15. 


5  Acts  vi.  2. 


Studies  of  the  Clergy. 


327 


to  the  Visitation  Sermon  of  Bishop  Bull  on  this  subject,6 
as  expressing  fully  and  clearly  what  I  would  wish  to  say 
upon  it. 

The  moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  trials  and  dangers  of 
the  clergy  in  our  country  parishes  are  not  less  than  those  of 
their  brethren  in  our  large  towns.  They  are  tempted  to 
suppose  that  because  their  congregations  are  small,  and 
consist  mainly  of  poor,  they  need  not  take  much  pains  with 
their  sermons,  or  improve  themselves  in  the  knowledge  of 
Holy  Scripture,  and  of  the  constitution,  principles,  and 
history  of  the  Church. 

The  result  too  often  is,  that,  while  this  temptation  is 
yielded  to,  the  preaching  becomes  dry  and  dreary,  and  is 
not  instinct  with  that  quickening  spirit  which  goes  to  the 
heart  of  the  hearer,  and  animates  him  with  the  love  of  God 
and  man,  and  while  it  confirms  his  faith,  excites  him  to  do 
his  duty.  It  seems  to  be  forgotten  by  some  that  the 
catechizing  of  children  is  one  of  the  most  difficult,  useful, 
and  honourable  works  in  which  the  Christian  priest  and 
pastor  can  be  employed ;  and  that  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  to  the  poor  was  the  special  work  of  Christ;  and  that 
the  souls  of  children,  the  poor,  the  sick^  and  the  aged,  are 
very  precious  in  His  sight.  Where  these  truths  are  neg- 
lected, the  parish  church  is  ill-attended,  the  services  are 
cold  and  lifeless,  Communions  are  infrequent,  the  Holy- 
Days  of  the  Church  are  ill  observed,  the  people  are  put  off 
with  two  services  on  a  Sunday,  perhaps  even  with  only  one, 
and  the  House  of  God  remains  shut  and  empty  during  the 
rest  of  the  week.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  that  in  such  places 
Dissent  should  be  rife,  and  children  be  taken  away  from  the 
Church  to  the  meeting-house,  and  the  people  be  a  prey  to 
the  fanaticism  of  ranters;  that  Nonconformity  should  assume 
a  political  character  and  inveigh  against  the  National 
Church,  and  desire  to  subvert  it,  and  be  ready  to  ally  itself 
with  Secularism  and  Bomanism  for  its  overthrow  ;  and  that 
England  should  be  in  danger  of  seeing  again  the  miseries 
and  confusions  of  the  seventeenth  century  ? 

6  Bishop  Bull's  Works,  i.  137.  Sermon  VI.,  "  The  Priest's  Office 
Difficult  and  Dangerous." 


328 


Miscellanies. 


To  this  it  may  be  added,  that,  in  consequence  of  the  rapid 
diffusion  of  cheap  Literature,  good  or  bad,  by  means  of  the 
public  press,  the  scepticism  of  our  great  towns  is  now 
filtering  itself  into  our  country  villages,  and  it  is  very 
desirable  that  the  clergy  should  be  well  prepared  to  supply 
antidotes  to  it. 

The  clergy  in  our  country  parishes  have  usually  much 
time  at  their  disposal.  Some  of  them  are  heard  to  complain 
that  it  hangs  heavy  on  their  hands,  and  that  they  are  shut 
out  from  the  enjoyments  of  refined  society ;  and  some  are 
known  to  ask  for  leave  of  non-residence  on  this  account. 
But  let  me  earnestly  and  affectionately  exhort  such  persons 
to  consider  the  duty  of  the  clergy  to  devote  themselves  to 
professional  studies,  for  the  sake  of  themselves,  their  families, 
their  congregations,  and  of  their  neighbours.  When  this  is 
the  case,  no  society  is  more  agreeable  or  instructive  than 
that  of  a  country  parsonage.  What  a  delightful  companion 
was  George  Herbert !  The  inmates  of  the  parsonage  of 
Little  Gidding,7  in  an  unpicturesque  country,  never  found  it 
dull.  Think  of  the  delightful  intercourse  of  Hooker  and 
Saravia,  of  Sanderson  and  Hammond  ; 

"  0,  could  we  copy  their  mild  virtues  !  then 
What  joy  to  live,  what  blessedness  to  die  !  " 

Was  not  such  society  even  more  pleasant  than  that  of 
Ennius  and  Scipio  the  Elder,  and  of  Terence  and  Scipio  the 
Younger  and  Laslius,  and  of  Cicero  and  his  friends  at  his 
Tusculan  villa  ?  The  words  of  that  great  orator  and 
philosopher,8  concerning  the  delights  and  uses  of  literary 
pursuits,  may  be  applied  in  a  higher  sense  to  the  professional 
studies  of  the  English  clergy.  "  Hasc  studia  adolescentiam 
alunt,  senectutem  oblectant,  secundas  res  ornant,  adversis 
perfugiumet  solatium  praebent;  delectant  domi,non  impediunt 
foris,  pernoctant  nobiscum,  peregrinantur,  rusticantur." 

The  present  is  an  age  when  nothing  is  allowed  to  pass 
unchallenged.  We  need  a  learned  Ministry  ;  especially  we 
require  a  Priesthood  mighty  in  the  Scriptures. 

7  See  the  "  Life  of  Nicholas  Farrar,"  by  Dr.  Peckard.    Canibr.  1790. 
s  Cicero  pro  Archia  Poeta,  c.  vii. 


Studies  of  the  Clergy. 


329 


May  I  desire  you,  my  reverend  brethren,  never  to  let  a 
day  pass  without  careful  study  of  the  Bible.  Let  me  ask 
you  to  read  critically  the  four  Lessons  appointed  in  the 
daily  Calendar ;  and  in  the  Daily  Service  never  to  omit  either 
of  the  two  Lessons  appointed  in  the  Calendar ;  and  to  read 
the  Lessons  at  home,  before  you  read  them  in  Church. 
Intelligent  reading  of  Scripture  is  the  best  preaching.  It 
may  seem  a  slight  thing  to  notice,  but  false  quantities  in 
proper  names  (such  as  "  Timotkeus,"  "  Urbane  "  and  others 
sometimes  heard  in  the  public  reading  of  Scripture, 
e.  g.  Rom.  xvi.)  are  justly  supposed  to  imply  more  than 
meets  the  ear. 

You  will  endeavour,  my  dear  friends,  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  best  literature  of  the  day.  But  do  not  take  your 
theology  from  articles  in  magazines  and  newspapers.  Read 
the  ancient  Fathers  of  the  Church,  especially  those  of  the 
Apostolic  and  sub-Apostolic  age,  and  the  Ecclesiastical 
Historians,  especially  Eusebius ;  and  such  authors  as 
Tertullian,  St.  Cyprian,  St.  Ambrose,  St.  Athanasius,  St. 
Augustine,  St.  Jerome,  and  St.  Chrysostora. 

Study  diligently  the  best  writers  of  the  Church  of 
England,  especially  those  of  the  era  of  the  Beformation,  such 
especially  as  Bishop  Ridley  (his  life  by  Dr.  Gloucester  Ridley 
is  very  valuable),  and  Bishop  Jewel ;  and  those  of  the  next 
age,  such  as  Hooker,  Andrewes,  Laud,  Bramhall,  Sanderson, 
Pearson,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Barrow,  Bull,  Wilson,  Waterland, 
and  Bishop  Butler. 

At  the  present  time  the  careful  and  discriminating  study 
of  two  periods  of  our  Church  history  is  very  necessary, 
namely,  that  of  the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  that  of  the  Ecclesiastical  and  Civil  Troubles  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

As  to  the  former,  beware,  J  entreat  you,  of  the  dangerous 
fallacy  which  is  propagated  by  Romanists,  and  accepted  by 
some  Protestants,  that  our  Reformers  set  up  a  new  Church 
in  England.  Their  work  was  not  innovating  but  restorative. 
They  did  not  make  what  was  new,  but  preserved,  purified, 
and  confirmed  the  old. 

That  good  and  great  man,  tho  late  Dean  of  Chichester, 


33o 


I\Iiscellanies. 


Dr.  Hook,  who  has  lately  entered  into  his  rest,  was 
providentially  preserved  to  continue  his  work,  the  Lives  of 
the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury,  to  the  death  of  Archbishop 
Laud,  in  whose  biography  you  may  see  a  narrative  of  the 
events  of  that  troubled  time,  which,  in  some  respects, 
resembles  our  own  age.  Professor  Mozley's  Essay  on  Laud's 
Life  and  Times  (like  his  other  Essays)  is  invaluable. 

Let  me  also  mention  the  Lectures  of  Bishop  Sanderson  on 
Conscience,9  and  on  Oaths ;  and  the  Prefaces  to  his  Sermons, 
which  offer  valuable  helps  for  the  solution  of  many  problems, 
ecclesiastical  and  civil,  at  the  present  time. 

The  question  of  the  necessity  of  an  outward  call,  and 
lawful  commission,  for  the  valid  exercise  of  the  Christian 
Ministry,  is  one  which  now  occupies,  and  will  continue  to 
occupy,  the  attention  of  thoughtful  persons  in  this  country ; 
and  it  is  one  on  which  you  ought  to  be  able  to  speak  with 
clearness  and  power.  On  this  subject  nothing  in  the  English 
language  surpasses,  in  logical  acumen,  and  vigour  of  style, 
the  Letters  of  William  Laiv  to  Bishop  Hoadly.  They  may 
be  placed  side  by  side  with  the  Provincial  Letters  of  Blaise 
Pascal ;  in  both  cases  it  might  be  wished  that  sarcasm  had 
been  spared;  and  that  "suaviter  in  modo"  had  been  joined 
with  "fortiter  in  re."  1 

Wherever  these  and  other  studies  (such  as  poetry,  natural 
philosophy,  and  history,  showing  God's  power,  wisdom,  and 
love)  are  cultivated  by  the  clergy  in  country  parishes,  their 
lives  are  not  lonely  and  dismal,  and  their  families  are  not 
discontented  and  unhappy ;  they  are  not  tempted  to  resort 
to  frivolous  amusements,  or  to  indulging  in  low  animal 
pleasures.  The  vices  of  the  monastic  life  may  reproduce  them- 
selves in  our  country  parishes.  In  some  respects  solitude  is 
more  dangerous  than  society.    But  how  beautiful  is  the 

0  The  Latin  Editions,  London,  1655  and  1660,  and  in  the  fourth  volume 
in  Bishop  Jacobson's  Edition  of  Sanderson's  Works,  Oxford,  1854 ;  an 
English  translation,  London,  1722 ;  also  in  part  by  Dr.  Whewell,  in 
1851.  A  cheap  reprint  of  these  Lectures  (in  English),  has  been  lately 
published,  see  above,  p.  121. 

1  W.  Law's  Letters  to  Hoadly,  London,  1753,  1762,  republished  in  the 
Scholar  Armed,  i.  279,  and  two  of  them  by  Mr.  Joshua  Watson  in 
1835. 


Beauty  of  the  Country  Parson 's  life.  331 


pastor's  life  formed  on  the  model  drawn  by  George  Herbert 
in  his  "  Country  Parson,"  2  and  as  described 3  by  one  of  the 

2  "  The  Priest  to  the  Temple;  or,  the  Country  Parson  :  his  Character 
and  Rule  of  Holy  Life."    By  George  Herbert.  1632. 

3  Keble's  "  Christian  Year,"  for  First  Sunday  after  Easter. 

"  I  thought  it  scorn  with  Thee  to  dwell, 
A  Hermit  in  a  silent  cell, 

While,  gaily  sweeping  by, 
Wild  Fancy  blew  his  bugle  strain, 
And  marshall'd  all  his  gallant  train 

In  the  World's  wondering  eye. 

"  I  would  have  join'd  him,  but  as  oft 
Thy  whisper'd  warnings,  kind  and  soft, 
My  better  soul  confess'd — 
'  My  servant,  let  the  world  alone, 
Safe  on  the  steps  of  Jesus'  throne 
Be  tranquil  and  be  blest. 

" '  Seems  it  to  thee  a  niggard  hand, 
That  nearest  Heaven  has  made  thee  stand, 

The  Ark  to  touch  and  bear, 
With  incense  of  pure  heart's  desire 
To  keep  the  censer's  sacred  fire, 

The  snow-white  Ephod  wear  ?  ' 

"  Why  should  we  crave  the  worldling's  wreath, 
On  whom  the  Saviour  deign'd  to  breathe, 

To  whom  his  keys  were  given  ; 
Who  lead  the  choir  where  angels  meet, 
With  angels'  food  our  brethren  greet, 
And  pour  the  drink  of  Heaven  ? 

,;  When  sorrow  all  our  heart  would  ask, 
We  need  not  shun  our  daily  task, 

And  hide  ourselves  for  calm  ; 
The  herbs  we  seek  to  heal  our  woe, 
Familiar  by  our  pathway  grow  ; 

Our  common  air  is  balm. 

"  Around  each  pure  domestic  shrine, 
Bright  flowers  of  Eden  bloom  and  twine, 

Our  hearts  are  altars  all ; 
The  prayers  of  hungry  souls  and  poor 
Like  armed  angels  at  the  door 

Our  unseen  foes  appal. 


Miscellanies. 


brightest  ornaments  of  that  holy  society,  who  may  be  called 
the  George  Herbert  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Let  me  pass  to  another  point.  Bishop  Sanderson,  in 
his  "  Articles  of  Inquiry/'  issued  before  his  Visitation  of 
the  Diocese  of  Lincoln  in  16G2,  requested  the  clergy  to 
furnish  him  with  any  interesting  particulars  which  they  could 
discover  in  their  parish  churches,  such  as  coats  of  heraldry 
and  ancient  inscriptions,  illustrative  of  the  history  of  the 
county.  We  have  no  good  County  History  of  Lincolnshire. 
Might  not  the  parochial  clergy  employ  some  of  their  spare 
time  in  collecting  the  historical  records  of  their  respective 
parishes  ?  The  parish  church,  the  churchyard,  the  parish 
register,  the  manor-house,  the  ruined  abbey  or  castle,  and 
other  local  monuments,  documents,  and  traditions,  would 
supply  materials  for  a  County  History,  which  could  not  be 
written  without  such  a  combination  as  this,  and  might  easily 
be  composed  by  means  of  such  a  division  of  labour.  Some 
of  our  brethren  in  Lincolnshire  and  Nottingham  have 
entitled  themselves  to  our  gratitude  by  already  publishing 
many  interesting  monographs  of  this  kind,  and  others 
might  be  mentioned  as  having  made  valuable  collections  in 
manuscript,  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  will  not  be  lost,  but  be 
applied  to  this  purpose. 

This  suggestion  is  now  being  acted  on,  1879. 

Let  me  now  say  a  few  words  on  more  homely  topics. 

Many  things  tend  to  show  that  the  Clergy  of  the  Church 
of  England  must  be  prepared  for  temporal  hardships. 
Clerical  Incomes  for   the   most   part  remain  stationary. 

"  Alms  all  around  and  hymns  within, 
What  evil  eye  can  entrance  win 

Where  guards  like  these  abound  ? 
If  chance  some  heedless  heart  should  roam, 
Sure,  thought  of  these  will  lure  it  home 

Ere  lost  in  Folly's  round. 

"  0  joys,  that  sweetest  in  decay, 
Fall  not,  like  wither'd  leaves,  away, 

But  with  the  silent  breath 
Of  violets  drooping  one  by  one, 
Soon  as  their  fragrant  task  is  done, 
Are  wafted  high  in  death  !  " 


Homes  of  the  Clergy — Marriage.  333 


Prices  for  provisions,  for  household  labour,  for  almost  every- 
thing, are  on  the  increase.  The  Apostolic  precept,  "  Thou 
therefore,  my  son,  endure  hardness,  as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus 
Christ,"4  has  a  special  force  for  the  Clergy  at  the  present 
time.  It  was  well  said  by  a  heathen  poet,  "  I  will  enlarge 
my  income  by  narrowing  my  desires," 

"  Contracto  melius  parva  cupidine 
Vectigalia  porrigam." s 

My  reverend  brethren,  let  it  be  our  rule  to  live  within  our 
income,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  to  endeavour  to  train  our 
families  in  the  same  way.  The  biographical  memoir6  of 
the  Rev.  Robert  Walker,  Vicar  of  Seathwaite,  in  Lanca- 
shire, on  the  banks  of  the  river  Duddon,  for  more  than 
sixty  years,  in  the  last  century — who,  with  a  slender  income, 
brought  up  well  a  large  family,  and — like  Virgil's  Corycian 
old  man — 

"  Regum  sequabat  opes  animis," 7 

and  showed  that — 

"  Divitiae  grandes  homini  sunt  vivere  parce 
iEquo  animo,"  8 

may  be  commended  to  your  attention  at  the  present  time, 
not  indeed  for  exact  imitation,  but  for  the  spirit  of  noble 
frugality,  generous  self-denial,  and  Christian  piety  and 
holiness,  which  animated  and  regulated  his  life. 

The  Apostle  St.  Paul,  in  his  pastoral  Epistles,  lays  great 
stress  on  the  personal  character,  not  only  of  the  Clergy, 
but  of  their  wives  and  children  and  households.  "  A  Bishop 
must  rule  well  his  own  house  (he  says),  having  his  children 
in  subjection  with  all  gravity;"  "he  must  be  blameless, 
having  faithful  children,  not  accused  of  riot  or  unruly  9 
and  the  same  precepts  are  given  to  deacons.1  And  their 
wives  must  be  grave,  sober,  and  faithful  in  all  things ;  and 
they  must  rule  their  children  and  houses  well.    And  he 

4  2  Tim.  ii.  3.  5  Horat.  3  Od.  xvi.  37. 

6  It  may  be  found  in  the  Notes  to  W.  Words  worth's  Sonnets  on  the 
River  Duddon,  vol.  iv.  p.  320,  ed.  London,  1849. 

Virg.  Georg.  iv.  132.  8  Lucret.  v.  iii.  7. 

9  1  Tim.  iii.  4.    Tit.  i.  6.  1  1  Tim.  iii.  8. 


334 


Miscellanies. 


says  to  us  all,  cc  Owe  no  man  anything,  but  to  love  one 
auother." ' 

Bear  with  me,  for  calling  your  attention  to  these  things. 
The  family  of  the  Pastor  of  a  Parish  is  public  property. 
The  holy  influences  diffused  from  the  Parsonage  may  preach 
to  his  people  with  the  silent  eloquence  of  a  continual 
sermon.  Who  can  say  how  much  the  character  of  the 
Apostle  St.  Peter  was  strengthened  by  the  courage  of  his 
wife  who  accompanied  him  on  his  missionary  journeys,3 
and  went  before  him  to  martyrdom  ?  4  How  much  Gregory 
Nazianzen's  father,  who  was  Bishop  of  Nazianzus,  owed  to 
his  wife,  Nonna,  and  how  much  Gregory,  afterwards 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  owed  to  her  also,  we  learn 
from  Gregory  himself.5  The  spiritual  blessings  of  the 
conjugal  union  of  Paulinus,  Bishop  of  Nola,  and  his  wife, 
Therasia,  are  well  known  from  the  letters  of  St.  Augustine.0 
One  of  the  holiest  of  our  English  Pastors  and  Poets," 
George  Herbert,  in  that  golden  manual  of  the  Parish  Priest, 
the  Country  Parson,  says  that  "the  Parson  is  very  exact  in 
the  governing  of  his  house,  making  it  a  copy  and  model  for 

-  Bom.  xiii.  8.  3  1  Cor.  ix.  5. 

4  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccl.  iii.  30. 

5  See  his  Orations,  Orat.  vii.  p.  199 ;  and  Orat.  xviii.  pp.  335,  343, 
361,  ed.  Bened.  Paris,  1778;  and  his  Poems,  vol.  ii.  pp.  1131—1149. 

6  Augustine's  Epistles,  vol.  ii.  Ep.  27,  Ep.  31,  and  Ep.  32,  and  passim. 

7  George  Herbert,  Country  Parson,  chap.  x. ;  St.  Jerome's  Epist.  xxxiv. 
ad  Nepotianum,  on  Clerical  Life  (torn.  iv.  p.  256,  ed.  Bened.  1706),  has 
many  wholesome  precepts  expressed  with  great  vigour,  e.  g.  "  Ignominia 
sacerdotum  est,  propriis  studere  divitiis.  Divinas  Scripturas  saepius 
lege,  imo  nunquam  de  manibus  tuis  sacra  lectio  deponatur ;  disce  quod 
doceas  ;  non  confundant  opera  tua  sermonem  tuum,  ne  quis  tibi  respondeat, 
Cur  qua;  dicis  ipse  non  facis  ?  Lacrymae  auditorum  laudes  tuaa  sint. 
Nolo  te  declamatorem  esse,  sed  mysteriorum  peritum  et  sacramentorum 
Dei  tui  eruditissimum.  Verba  volvere  et  celeritate  dicendi  apud  imperi- 
tum  vulgus  admirationem  sui  facere,  indoctorum  hominum  est.  Nec 
rusticus  et  simplex  frater  ideo  se  sanctum  putet,  si  nihil  noverit ;  nec 
peritus  et  eloquens  lingua  sastimet  sanctitatem.  Cogitemus  crucem 
Christi,  et  divitias  lutum  esse  putabimus.  Cave  ne  linguam  aut  aures 
habeas  prurientes  ;  ne  ipse  aliis  detrahas,  aut  alios  audias  detrahentes. 
Nemo  invito  auditori  libenter  refert.  Sagitta  in  lapidem  non  figitur. 
Discat  detractor  non  detrahere,  dum  te  videt  non  libenter  audire  detra- 
hentem."    Excellent  advice  for  these  times. 


Domestic  Economy. 


335 


his  Parish;"  "he  requires  three  qualities  from  his  wife,  to 
train  up  his  children  and  maids  in  the  fear  of  God,  with 
prayers  and  catechizing  and  all  religious  duties ;  secondly, 
a  curing  of  wounds  with  her  own  hands ;  thirdly,  a  pro- 
viding for  her  family  in  such  sort  that  neither  they  want 
a  competent  sustentation  nor  be  brought  in  debt."  This 
caution,  not  to  be  brought  in  debt,  is  one  of  great  importance 
to  the  moral  and  religious  influence  of  a  Clergyman,  and 
the  success  of  his  ministry.  But  do  not  try  to  improve 
your  income  by  speculating.  The  love  of  money,  gambling, 
and  usury  (often  condemned  in  Scripture)  bring  then- 
retribution  even  in  this  life,  if  not  by  temporal  loss,  yet  by 
what  is  worse,  a  lowering  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  tone — 
a  thing  fatal  to  the  Christian  Ministry. 

Suffer  me,  to  commend  to  those  of  my  younger  brethren 
in  the  ministry  who  are  unmarried  the  advice  of  George 
Herbert,  in  that  book,8  "  Do  not  marry  hastily ;"  and  do 
not  marry  without  competent  means  of  decent  maintenance 
for  a  wife  and  family.  But  if  you  resolve  on  marriage 
(after  fervent  prayer  to  God  for  His  guidance)  take  care  to 
act  on  the  advice  you  give  to  others  when  in  reading  the 
Marriage  Service  you  say  that  "  Marriage  is  not  to  be 
enterprised  nor  taken  in  hand  lightly,  but  reverently, 
discreetly,  advisedly,  soberly,  and  in  the  fear  of  God." 
Your  own  professional  usefulness  and  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  happiness  of  many  others,  beside  your  own,  depend 
on  your  choice  of  a  wife.  "A  prudent  wife  is  from  the 
Lord,"  9  "  a  gracious  woman  retaineth  honour,"  1  "  a  virtuous 
woman  is  a  crown  to  her  husband ;"  "  her  price  is  far  above 
rubies ;  his  heart  doth  safely  trust  in  her." 2 

I  cannot  close  this  paper  without  referring  with  thank- 
fulness to  the  success  which  has  attended  the  operation  of  a 
Society  instituted  in  1870,  for  augmenting  the  incomes  of 
Poor  Benefices  in  Lincolnshire.  By  its  instrumentality  more 
than  53,000/.  has  been  applied  to  that  purpose  (1879).  The 


8  Chap.  ix. 
1  Prov.  xi.  10. 


9  Prov.  xix.  14. 

8  Prov.  xii.  4;  xxxi.  10,  11. 


336 


Miscellanies. 


machinery  is  very  simple.  Let  100/.  be  raised  by  subscrip- 
tion for  any  benefice  under  200/.  a  year;  let  this  100/.  thus 
raised  be  brought  to  the  Association  ;  it  will  add  another 
100/.  to  it;  and  then  carry  the  200/.  thus  raised,  to  Queen 
Anne's  Bounty,  which  will  probably  meet  it  by  another  200/., 
and  thus  the  living  will  be  augmented  by  14/.  a  year  for 
ever,  and  this  process  may  be  repeated.  It  has  now  been 
applied  to  many  poor  livings  in  this  Diocese. 


THE  MISSION  AT  LINCOLN. 


The  following  Addresses  were  delivered  before  and  during 
a  Mission,  which  proceeded  from  the  Cathedral  Church  at 
Lincoln,  and  was  held  in  the  Parishes  of  that  City,  with  the 
hearty  co-operation  of  the  Parochial  Clergy  in  February, 
187G;  and  which,  by  the  Divine  Blessing  upon  it,  has  pro- 
duced abundant  and  abiding  fruit. 

THE  COMING  MISSION. 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  op  lincoln. 

Dearly  beloved  in  the  Lord, 

It  is  proposed  to  hold  a  Mission  at  Lincoln  in  about  two 
months'  time,  namely,  in  February  next  (February  19 — 27) ; 
and,  in  conjunction  with  my  brethren  the  Clergy  I  earnestly 
invite  your  help  in  endeavouring  to  make  it  effectual. 

The  word  Mission,  used  in  this  sense,  seems  to  require 
explanation.  A  Missionary  means  one  who  is  sent.  Every 
clergyman  is  a  missionary ;  he  is  sent  by  Christ  to  every 
soul  committed  to  his  care. 

Again,  in  popular  language,  a  Mission  is  usually  applied  to 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the  heathen.  But  Lincoln 
has  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  Christianity  for  many  centuries; 
it  has  many  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  many  places  of  religious 
worship,  many  Christian  schools,  and  almost  every  one  there 
either  has,  or  may  have,  a  Bible.  A  Mission  at  Lincoln  is 
not  like  the  mission  of  the  prophet  Jonah  to  Nineveh,  but 
rather  like  the  preaching  of  Jeremiah,  or  of  Ezekiel, — or 
even  of  Christ  Himself  and  His  Apostles, — to  Jerusalem. 

The  first  thought,  therefore,  suggested  by  a  mission  to 
Lincoln  is  one  of  solemn  responsibility.    Suffer  me,  then,  to 

vol  in.  z 


Miscellanies. 


ask  of  you — What  fruit  aro  you  bringing  forth  of  the 
spiritual  benefits  which  have  been  vouchsafed  to  you  for 
many  generations  ?  What  is  your  present  state  as  to 
Christian  faith  and  Christian  practice?  What  your  religious 
condition  generally,  as  to  temperance,  sobriety,  purity, 
chastity,  and  "  holiness,  without  which  no  man  shall  see  the 
Lord"  ?  (Heb.  xii.  14.)  What  as  to  honesty,  probity,  and 
integrity  ?  What  as  to  charity  and  brotherly  love,  which 
are  indispensable  requisites  for  acceptance  with  God  ?  (1 
Cor.  xiii.)  We  know  from  our  future  Judge,  that  it  will 
"  be  more  tolerable  for  Tyre  and  Sidon,"  and  even  for 
"  Sodom  and  Gomorrha  in  the  day  of  Judgment/''  than  for 
those  who  have  heard  the  Gospel,  and  who  live  godless  lives 
(Matt.  x.  15  ;  xi.  21.  Luke  x.  13).  Unless"  we  believe  and 
obey  the  Gospel,  we  may  read  in  the  miserable  fate  of 
Jerusalem,  a  prophecy  of  our  own  destiny  for  Eternity. 

Ought  not,  therefore,  the  time  of  a  Mission  to  be  a  season 
to  us  all  of  self-humiliation,  of  penitential  shame  and  sorrow 
for  the  past,  and  of  godly  resolutions  for  the  future  ? 
Ought  it  not  to  be  a  season  of  prayer  for  pardon,  and  for 
grace  ? 

Let  us  thank  God  for  these  Missions.  But  believe  me  the 
principal  part  of  a  Mission  is  not  the  Missioner  :  nor  is  the 
Mission-week  the  main  thing  in  the  work  of  a  Mission. 
No  :  the  labour  of  the  Mission-week  will  be  fruitless,  unless 
you  are  willing  to  do  your  part.  I  speak  both  to  clergy  and 
laity.  The  Mission-week  is  the  seed-time  ;  but  there  must 
be  much  careful  previous  preparation  of  the  ground  before  it, 
and  much  watchfulness  after  it.  Unless  this  is  the  case,  the 
Missioner  may  produce  a  little  temporary  religious  excite- 
ment, but  that  excitement  will  soon  pass  away,  and  will  be 
succeeded  by  apathy  and  indifference.  It  will  be  only  like 
a  fever  followed  by  an  ague. 

What  then  is  to  be  done  ? 

First,  let  each  of  us  be  a  missioner  to  himself ;  have  an 
"  inquiry  room  "  in  your  own  heart ;  set  up  a  confessional 
there;  test  your  own  faith  and  practice  by  the  only  unerring 
standard,  that  of  God's  Holy  Word.  Do  you  believe  in  the 
never-ending  Life  to  come  ?    Are  you  acting  in  that  belief  ? 


The  Coming  Mission. 


339 


Do  you  realize  God's  Omnipresence  and  Omniscience  ?  In 
your  daily  business — in  the  street,  the  shop,  and  the  mart — 
in  the  social  meeting  and  domestic  circle,  as  well  as  in  your 
secret  chamber,  are  you  conscious  of  His  all-seeing  Eye,  and 
do  you  think  often  of  Death,  Judgment,  Heaven,  Hell,  and 
Eternity  ?  Do  you  pray  to  God  daily  ?  Do  you  read  His 
Word  daily  ?  If  not,  begin  now ;  and  not  only  this,  be  a 
missioner  to  your  household,  to  your  children,  to  your 
servants.  Have  you  family  prayer  ?  If  not,  begin  now. 
Are  you  an  employer  of  labour  ?  Be  a  missioner  to  those 
who  are  helping  you  to  be  rich  in  this  world ;  care  for  their 
souls  ;  enable  and  encourage  them  to  come  to  the  Mission  ; 
thus  they  will  assist  you  to  be  rich  for  Eternity. 

This  Mission  is  for  us  all.  Every  one  may  profit  by  it. 
There  is  no  one  who  ought  to  stand  still;  our  life  is  a  battle, 
a  race.  Even  with  the  holiest  among  us,  acts  of  faith  and 
love  may  be  made  more  frequent  and  fervent.  We  are  all 
"members  one  of  another"  (Ephes.  iv.  25).  "None  of  us 
liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to  himself  "  (Rom.  xiv. 
7).  It  was  the  first  murderer,  Cain,  who  said,  "Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper?"  (Gen.  iv.  9).  You  are  your  brother's 
keeper.  No  one  can  hope  to  be  saved  who  cares  little  if 
his  neighbour  is  lost.  The  best  way  to  save  ourselves  is  to 
try  and  save  others.  What  was  the  use  of  the  angel 
coming  down  to  stir  the  waters  of  Bethesda,  unless  there 
were  friends  of  the  sick  to  put  them  into  the  pool?  (John  v. 
4 — 7).  The  paralytic  in  the  Gospel  would  not  have  been 
cured,  unless  there  had  been  loving  hands  to  carry  hjm  up 
to  the  house-top,  and  to  let  him  down  in  the  presence  of 
Christ  (Mark  ii.  4.  Luke  v.  18).  What  will  be  the  use  of 
the  Missioner,  unless  you  help  the  Mission  ?  The  worldly- 
minded,  the  profligate  and  the  libertine,  the  sceptic  and 
unbeliever,  will  not  come  of  their  own  accord  to  Church  and 
to  the  Mission.  Be  you  a  missioner  to  them — "  Go  out  into 
the  highways  and  hedges,  and  compel  them  to  come  in " 
(Luke  xiv.  23).  Tell  them  that  "the  wages  of  sin  is  Death" 
(Bom.  vi.  23),  that  the  hour  is  coming  when  all  that  are  in 
the  graves  will  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  will 
come  forth,  to  be  judged  according  to  their  works  (John  v. 

z  2 


34Q 


Miscellanies. 


28) ;  and  that  He  will  be  revealed  in  flaming  fire  taking 
vengeance  on  them  that  know  not  God,  and  obey  not  the 
Gospel;  and  that  they  will  be  punished  with  everlasting 
destruction  (2  Thess.  i.  7).  But  tell  them  also  that  there  is 
rest  for  the  weary  and  heavy-laden  in  Christ  (Matt.  xi.  28)  ; 
tell  them  that  there  is  "  a  fountain  opened  for  sin  and  for 
uncleanness"  there  (Zech.  xiii.  1);  tell  them  that  "if  we 
walk  in  the  light  as  He  is  in  the  light,  ....  the  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin  "  (1 
John  i.  7) ;  tell  them  that  there  is  perfect  pardon  and  peace 
— infinite  and  eternal — in  Him,  and  in  Him  alone,  to  all  who 
truly  turn  to  Him  with  faith  and  repentance,  and  sincere 
purpose  of  amendment  of  life.  Tell  them  that  He  tasted 
death  for  every  man  (Heb.  ii.  9) ;  that  whosoever  cometh  to 
Him  He  will  in  no  wise  cast  out  (John  vi.  57)  ;  and  that 
there  is  joy  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth  (Luke 
xv.  7).  Thus  the  fallen  may  be  raised,  the  doubting  may  be 
settled  in  the  faith,  the  erring  may  be  reclaimed,  the  sinner 
may  be  saved,  by  your  means ;  and  at  the  great  Day  you 
will  have  the  inexpressible  joy  of  seeing  in  their  everlasting 
bliss  the  fruit  of  your  own  work  in  the  Mission. 

Remember  also  that  the  love  of  the  good  Samaritan  was 
shown,  not  only  by  going  to  the  wounded  traveller  lying  in 
the  road,  and  by  pouring  in  oil  and  wine,  but  by  setting  him 
on  his  own  beast,  and  bringing  him  to  the  inn,  and  taking 
care  of  him  and  providing  for  him  afterwards  (Luke  x. 
33 — 35) — "  Go  and  do  thou  likewise."  I  speak  both  to 
clergy  and  laity.  Not  only  pour  in  the  wine  and  oil  of 
Christ's  blood  and  of  spiritual  grace,  in  the  sinner's  wounds, 
but  bring  Mm  to  the  inn,  to  the  inn  of  Christ's  Church ; 
take  care  of  him  there ;  provide,  according  to  your  means, 
for  his  spiritual  maintenance  there,  by  liberal  alms-giving  to 
works  of  piety  and  charity,  in  the  building  and  endowing  of 
churches,  and  in  all  that  is  requisite  for  the  care  of  sick 
souls,  not  only  after  the  Mission  is  over,  but  after  your  own 
departure  from  this  world  to  a  better. 

But,  further,  the  Missioner  may  preach,  and  you  may 
work,  but  all  will  be  profitless  except  the  Holy  Spirit  guides 
and  helps  both  him  and  you.    Paul  may  plant,  Apollos  may 


The  Coming  Mission. 


34i 


water,  but  it  is  God  Who  gives  the  increase  (1  Cor.  iii.  6). 
The  seed  is  sown,  but  it  cannot  take  root,  and  grow,  and  bear 
fruit,  without  the  sunshine,  dew,  and  rain  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
from  above.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  given  in  answer  to  earnest 
prayer  (Luke  xi.  31).  Pray,  therefore,  for  the  gift  of  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  pray  for  it  in  the  name  of  Christ ;  pray  for  it 
now  ;  pray  for  it  during  the  Mission  ;  pray  for  it  after  the 
Mission.  You  will  find,  at  the  end  of  this  paper,  some 
prayers  for  the  Mission,  which  may  be  added  to  your  private 
and  family  devotions. 

Brethren  beloved  in  the  Lord,  the  first  Mission  of  which 
we  read  in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  after  the  Ascension  of 
Christ  and  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  contained  in 
the  second  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Let  me 
invite  your  careful  attention  to  it.  It  is  like  a  picture, 
drawn  by  a  divine  hand,  of  what  a  Mission  ought  to  be. 
There  we  see  a  fearless  and  fervent  missioner,  St.  Peter, 
standing  up  boldly  and  preaching  Christ  to  those  who  had 
lately  crucified  Him.  Many  were  converted  by  his  preach- 
ing, and  they  who  were  converted  were  baptized  (Acts  ii. 
41).  Observe  what  follows:  "They  continued  steadfastly 
in  the  apostles'  doctrine  and  fellowship,  and  in  breaking  of 
bread,  and  in  prayers."  Believe  me,  that  the  real  fruit  of  a 
Mission  is  not  in  sudden  emotions,  and  violent  ejaculations, 
and  vehement  professions,  and  passionate  ecstasies  and 
raptures ;  it  is  not  in  fanatical  rhapsodies,  nor  even  in  a  few 
fitful  acts  of  piety  or  charity  (which  may  be  like  the  sudden 
growth  of  Jonah's  gourd,  or  of  the  seed  which  fell  on  the 
rock  and  sprang  up  hastily,  and  was  soon  scorched  and 
withered  by  the  sun) ;  but  it  is  to  be  seen  in  "  patient 
continuance  in  well-doing"  (Rom.  ii.  7)  in  the  midst  of  trial 
and  difficulty.  He  that  shall  endure  unto  the  end,  the  same 
shall  be  saved  (Matt.  xxiv.  13).  It  is  to  be  seen  in  sound- 
ness and  steadfastness  of  faith;  it  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
"  work  of  faith  and  labour  of  love,  and  patience  of  hope  in 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  sight  of  God  and  our  Father  " 
(1  Thess.  i.  3)  ;  it  is  to  be  seen  in  unity  and  fellowship  in 
Apostolic  doctrine  and  discipline,  in  prayer  and  praise,  and 
in  the  habitual  devout  reception  of  the  Holy  Communion. 


342 


Miscellanies. 


Remember  the  concluding  words  of  that  Scriptural  record 
of  the  first  Mission :  "  The  Lord  added  to  the  Church  daily 
such  as  should  be  saved"  (Acts  ii.  47).  The  fruit  of  that 
Apostolic  Mission  was  seen  long  after  St.  Peter's  voice  had 
ceased  to  be  heard;  it  was  seen  in  distant  lands,  and  in 
succeeding  ages ;  it  increased  far  and  wide,  and  it  abides 
even  to  this  day ;  it  was  seen  in  bringing  men  nearer  to  one 
another  and  to  God  in  the  Church  of  Christ ;  and  thus  it 
prepared  them  and  qualified  them  by  His  grace  ministered 
to  faithful  and  loving  hearts  in  the  holy  offices  of  the  Church 
on  earth,  to  dwell  together  for  ever  in  the  Church  glorified 
in  heaven. 

The  results  of  a  successful  Mission  will  be  visible  long 
after  the  Mission  is  over.  They  will  appear  in  fuller 
Churches,  and  more  frequent  Baptisms,  more  reverent  Con- 
firmations, and  more  devout  Communions ;  they  will  be  seen 
among  all  classes  of  society,  in  larger  abundance  of  the 
fruits  of  the  Spirit,  which  are  "love,  joy,  peace,  long- 
suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance" 
(Gal.  v.  22). 

That  such  fruits  as  those  may  be  seen  at  the  great  Day  of 
Harvest  to  have  been  produced  largely  by  the  Mission  in 
this  place,  is  the  earnest  prayer  of  your  faithful  brother  and 
servant  in  the  Lord, 

C.  LINCOLN. 

Riseholme,  Lincoln, 

Tuesday  before  Advent,  1875. 


PRATERS  FOR  A  MISSION. 

Most  merciful  Father,  we  beseech  Thee  to  send  upon  Thy 
Ministers  Thy  heavenly  blessing,  especially  on  the  Missioners 
of  this  place ;  that  they  may  be  clothed  with  righteousness, 
and  that  Thy  Word  spoken  by  their  mouth  may  have  such 
success  that  it  may  never  be  spoken  in  vain ;  and  grant  that 
in  all  our  words  and  deeds  we  may  seek  Thy  glory,  and  the 
increase  of  Thy  kingdom,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Amen. 


Prayers  for  the  Mission. 


343 


0  Lord  Jesu  Christ,  the  Great  Shepherd  of  the  Sheep ; 
look  with  pity  on  the  populous  places  of  this  land,  especially 
on  this  city  ;  Bring  into  the  way  of  truth  all  that  err  arid 
are  deceived ;  Awaken  those  who  are  in  sin ;  Arouse  the 
careless ;  Humble  the  proud  and  unmerciful ;  Comfort  the 
fearful  and  sorrowful ;  Raise  up  them  that  fall ;  Heal  the 
broken-hearted ;  Give  them  true  repentance,  faith,  fear,  and, 
love,  and  so  sanctify  them  with  Thy  grace  that  they  may 
bring  forth  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  in  godliness,  righteous- 
ness, and  holiness,  and  may  come  to  Thy  heavenly  glory, 
through  Thy  merits  and  mediation,  Who  livest  and  reiguest 
with  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost  One  God  blessed  for 
ever.  Amen. 

Also  Prayer  for  Missions  above,  Vol.  ii.  p.  224. 

O  God  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  our  only  Saviour, 
the  Prince  of  Peace ;  Give  us  grace  seriously  to  lay  to  heart 
the  great  dangers  we  are  in  by  our  unhappy  divisions. 
Take  away  all  hatred  and  prejudice,  and  whatsoever  else 
may  hinder  us  from  godly  Union  and  Concord  :  that,  as 
there  is  but  one  Body  and  one  Spirit,  and  one  Hope  of  our 
Calling,  one  Lord,  one  Faith,  one  Baptism,  one  God  and 
Father  of  us  all,  so  we  may  henceforth  be  all  of  one  heart, 
and  of  one  soul,  united  in  one  holy  bond  of  Truth  and  Peace, 
of  Faith  and  Charity,  and  may  with  one  mind  and  one 
mouth  glorify  Thee ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Amen. 

Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven,  Hallowed  by  Thy  Name. 
Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth,  As  it  is  in 
heaven.  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.  And  forgive  us 
our  trespasses,  As  we  forgive  them  that  trespass  against  us. 
And  lead  us  not  into  temptation ;  But  deliver  us  from  evil ; 
For  Thine  is  the  kingdom,  the  power  and  the  glory,  For 
ever  and  ever.  Amen. 

The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God, 
and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  with  us  all  ever- 
more. Amen. 


344 


Miscellanies. 


THE  MISSION  COME. 

Words  spoken  by  the  Bishop  in  the  Cathedral  Church  of 
Lincoln,  at  the  Holy  Communion,  to  Missioners  and 
Church  workers,  on  the  first  day  of  the  Mission. 

Brethren  and  Sisters  in  Christ, — Let  us  thank  God  that 
He  enables  us  to  begin  our  Mission  in  this  holy  place — in 
this  Cathedral  Church — and  with  this  act  of  holy  Communion. 
Even  the  best  among  you  must  feel  his  spirit  sink  within 
him  when  he  thinks  of  the  greatness  of  the  work  and  of 
his  own  littleness.    Where,  then,  is  our  help  ?    It  is  here. 
It  is  in  God,  and  in  communion  with  Him.    The  prophet 
Isaiah,  at  the  beginning  of  his  mission,  was  in  the  temple, 
and  saw  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  as  he  describes  in  the  6th 
chapter ;  and  he  then  exclaimed,  "  Woe  is  me,  for  I  am 
undone,  because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips;  and  I  dwell 
in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips."     And  how 
was  he  comforted  ?    A  seraph  took  a  living  coal  from  the 
altar  and  laid  it  on  the  prophet's  mouth,  and  said,  "  Lo, 
this  hath  touched  thy  lips,  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away, 
and  thy  sin  is  purged."    And  then  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
was  heard,  "  Whom  shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us  ? 
Then  said  I,  Here  am  I ;  send  me."    Thus  Isaiah  became  a 
Missioner  to  Israel ;  and  so  you  to-day,  in  this  church,  at 
this  Holy  Communion,  will  have  as  it  were  a  living  coal, 
taken  from  God's  altar,laid  upon  your  lips  to  cleanse  them  and 
warm  your  hearts  with  the  holy  fire  of  zeal  and  love.    "  Of 
ourselves  we  can  do  nothing.    All  our  sufficiency  is  of  God ; 
we  can  do  all  things  through  Christ,  Who  strengtheneth 
us."    Even  the  most  zealous  and  courageous  of  missioners, 
Elijah,  after  his  triumph  at  Carmel,  fainted,  and  prayed  God 
to  take  him  to  Himself.    He  sat  down,  weary  and  sorrowful, 
beneath  the  dark  shade  of  the  juniper-tree  in  the  wilderness; 
but  then  he  was  strengthened, — and  how  ?    By  the  angel 
calling  him  and  saying,  "  Arise  and  eat,  for  the  journey  is 
too  great  for  thee ;  and  he  arose  and  ate,  and  he  went  in 
the  strength  of  that  meat  forty  days  and  forty  nights#to 
Horeb,  the  mount  of  God."    Doubtless  you,  too,  are  often 


Words  to  Missioners. 


345 


tempted  to  sit  down  faint  and  weary  of  your  work  beneath 
the  dark  juniper-trees  of  gloomy  thoughts  in  the  wilderness 
of  despondency;  but  there  is  an  angel  at  hand  for  you, 
especially  in  this  Holy  Sacrament,  to  strengthen  you  with 
food,  and  to  enable  you  to  arise  and  travel  through  this 
earthly  wilderness  to  the  Heavenly  Horeb. 

In  the  magnificent  visions  of  the  45th  Psalm,  and  in  the 
9th  chapter  of  the  prophet  Zechariah,  and  in  the  Gth  chapter 
of  the  Book  of  Revelation,  Christ  is  revealed  as  a  mighty 
Conqueror  and  King.  He  rides  on  a  white  horse,  the  horse 
of  light.  He  has  a  bow  in  His  hand,  and  a  quiver  on  His 
shoulder.  You  are  arrows  in  that  quiver.  He  it  is  that 
takes  you  forth  out  of  that  quiver,  as  arrows  feathered  with 
plumage  from  the  wings  of  the  Divine  Dove,  and  places  you 
with  His  own  hand  on  the  string  of  His  Divine  bow,  and 
discharges  you  at  the  "  heart  of  the  King's  enemies  "  (Ps. 
xlv.  5),  no.t  for  death,  but  for  eternal  life.  "  As  My  Father 
sent  Me,"  He  says  to  all  Apostolic  Missioners,  "  so  send  I 
you,"  and  "  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of 
the  world."  Therefore  forget  yourselves,  think  only  of 
Him  ;  pray  earnestly  with  your  hearts,  even  when  preaching 
with  your  lips. 

This,  which  is  specially  applicable  to  you,  is  also  true  of 
all  who  work  with  you ;  and  what  I  now  say  to  you,  I  say 
to  all.  Let  us  all  go  forth  in  His  name,  from  His  house,  in 
faith  and  love,  with  earnest  prayer  for  His  help,  to  promote 
His  glory,  and  do  His  work  in  the  saving  of  souls. 

But,  beloved,  your  mission  not  only  needs  divine  strength 
for  yourselves,  but  it  is  to  be  a  blessing  to  others.  Well, 
therefore,  may  it  begin  in  this  holy  place,  with  this  holy  act. 
This  Holy  Table,  at  which  "  we  show  the  Lord's  death  until 
He  come,"  is  like  the  altar  in  that  glorious  vision  of 
Ezekiel,  the  47th  chapter,  which  is  a  representation  of  the 
Christian  Church.  What  do  we  see  there  ?  Beneath  the 
altar — the  type  of  the  Cross  of  Christ — there  was  a  fountain 
and  well-spring,  from  which  flowed  living  waters,  deepening 
and  widening  in  their  course  through  the  wilderness,  and 
flowing  at  length  into  the  Dead  Sea,  which  they  made  to 
teem  with  life.    There  is  an  emblem  of  your  own  work. 


346 


HI isccllanies. 


Going  forth  from  the  sanctuary  of  this  church,  where  you 
feed  upon  Christ,  you  will  make  a  stream  to  flow  of  living 
waters  from  the  "fountain  opened"  in  His  bleeding  side 
"  for  sin  and  uncleanness,"  to  irrigate  and  fertilize  the  dry 
deserts  of  society,  and  to  purify  and  animate  the  stagnant 
pool  and  Dead  Sea  of  sin,  with  living  waters.  This  is  your 
Mission,  and  during  the  whole  of  your  work  your  eye  will 
be  upon  Him.    "  All  my  fresh  springs  are  in  Thee." 

And,  brethren  beloved  in  Christ,  in  what  way, — by  what 
order,  method,  and  plan, — is  this  work  to  be  done  ?  This 
is  a  hard  question.  There  is,  I  am  sure,  a  holy  art,  a  sacred 
science,  in  Missions.  It  not  only  requires  heroic  courage 
and  angelic  enthusiasm ;  it  needs  heavenly  wisdom.  Who 
is  sufficient  for  these  things  ? 

Let  me  offer  one  suggestion  here. 

Consider,  how  the  great  Apostolic  Missioner,  St.  Paul, 
would  act  if  he  had  come  among  your  number  to  this  place 
this  week.  The  answer  to  this  question  is  found  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  and  in  his  Epistles.  In  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  we  have  two  missionary  sermons  of  St.  Paul,  one 
in  the  13th  chapter,  in  the  Synagogue  of  Antioch  in  Pisidia, 
to  Jews,  who  had  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament;  the 
other  to  Gentiles,  at  Athens,  in  the  17th  chapter.  In  them 
he  lays  the  foundation,  in  an  endeavour  to  produce  in  his 
hearers  a  sense  of  personal  responsibility,  on  the  ground 
that  their  bodies  will  be  raised  from  the  grave  by  Christ, 
Who  raised  Himself  from  the  dead ;  and  that  they  will  be 
called  to  a  strict  account  of  their  words  and  works  at  the 
Day  of  Judgment,  and  will  receive  their  final  doom  accord- 
ingly for  everlasting  bliss  or  woe,  from  Him  Whom  God 
hath  appointed  to  be  the  Judge  of  Quick  and  Dead.  He 
thence  declares  the  guilt  and  misery  of  Sin,  and  enforces  the 
necessity  of  true  Repentance,  and  of  Faith  in  Christ,  as  the 
only  means  of  justification  and  reconciliation  with  God, 
and  of  eternal  Life.  He  states  "  the  first  principles  "  of 
missionary  work  in  the  6th  chapter  to  the  Hebrews, 
and  declares  them  to  be  "  the  foundation  of  repentance 
from  dead  works,  and  of  faith  towards  God ;  and  the 
doctrine  of  baptisms  and  of  laying  on  of  hands  "  (or  Con- 


St.  Paul's  missionary  method. 


347 


firmation),  "  and  of  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and  eternal 
judgment." 

Yet  further,  if  we  examine  St.  Paul's  Epistles  in  the 
order  in  which  they  were  written,  we  observe  the  same 
method.  The  earliest  of  his  Epistles,  those  to  the  Thes- 
salonians,  deal  with  little  else  than  the  doctrines  of  Resur- 
rection, of  Judgment,  and  Eternity.  This  is  to  be  our  mode 
of  proceeding.  We  must  begin  with  producing  godly  fear, 
holy  alarm ;  and  so  lead  up  to  faith  and  love,  to  love  of 
God,  our  reconciled  Father  in  Christ,  and  to  love  of  man  in 
Christ  and  for  Christ.  After  the  preaching  of  the  four  last 
things  (Death,  Resurrection,  Judgment,  and  Eternity)  in 
his  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  St.  Paul  comforts  the 
believer  with  the  hope  of  Justification  by  faith  in  Christ,  in 
his  Epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  Romans,  and  declares  the 
Universality  of  the  Redemption  provided  by  God  in  Christ 
for  all  who  believe  and  obey  Him.  He  delivers  a  solemn 
warning  against  schism,  and  inculcates  the  duty  of  charity, 
without  which  nothing  profits,  and  of  Church  Unity,  in  his 
Epistles  to  the  Corinthians ;  and  the  duty  of  purity,  holiness, 
and  virtue,  as  a  corollary  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Resur- 
rection, in  the  15th  chapter  of  the  1st  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians.  He  then  proceeds  to  higher  and  more  transcen- 
dental mysteries,  especially  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation, 
and  of  the  union  of  Christ  and  His  Church — the  union 
begun  in  Holy  Baptism — in  his  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians 
and  Colossiansj  and  shows  how  these  doctrines  are  to  be 
applied  to  the  enforcement  of  the  daily  practical  household 
duties  of  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  masters 
and  servants.  He  sums  up  all  in  his  Pastoral  Epistles  to 
Timothy  and  Titus,  with  a  clear  representation  of  the  orga- 
nization of  the  Church,  and  of  the  duties  of  the  Christian 
Ministry. 

This  is  but  a  faint  sketch  of  St.  Paul's  method  of  mis- 
sionary work  :  let  me  request  you  to  complete  it. 

And  here  let  me  offer  a  few  words  of  caution.  As  the 
first  work  of  the  Mission  is  to  produce  a  sense  of  personal 
accountability,  and  to  deepen  the  consciousness  of  Sin,  and 
to  humble  the  sinner  before  God,  and  to  bring  him,  humbled 


34§ 


Miscellanies. 


and  penitent,  to  Christ ;  and  to  exhort  him  to  lay  hold,  with 
faith  and  love,  of  the  hope  of  pardon,  reconciliation,  and 
eternal  life,  which  are  offered  to  the  believer  in  Him ;  and 
to  use  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  vouchsafed  through  com- 
munion with  Him  by  the  means  of  grace  in  His  Church ; 
therefore  let  us  carefully  beware  of  frustrating  this  work  by 
putting  into  the  mouths  of  our  hearers  enthusiastic  and 
ecstatic  hymns,  which,  instead  of  teaching  them,  with  St. 
Paul,  that  they  must  work  out  their  salvation  with  fear  and 
trembling,  and  must  seek  for  glory,  honour,  and  immortality, 
by  patient  continuance  in  well-doing,  would  lead  them 
rather  to  imagine  that  they  can  snatch  salvation  at  once  by 
a  spasmodic  seizure  of  self-assurance — a  most  dangerous 
delusion. 

And  suffer  me  also,  brethren,  to  offer  a  warning,  as  to 
what  are  called  "after-meetings."  The  Athenian  sophists 
of  old  exposed  themselves  to  just  censure  by  professing  to 
be  able  to  answer  any  questions  offhand  that  might  be  put 
to  them.  And  the  difference  between  a  wise  physician  and 
a  shallow  empiric  is,  that  the  former  proceeds  carefully, 
slowly,  and  tentatively,  the  other  is  ready  to  undertake  any 
case  at  once,  and  professes  to  have  a  ready  panacea  for  every 
disease.  Let  us  not  be  spiritual  sophists  and  empirics. 
Let  us  not  pretend  to  be  able  to  answer  at  once  every  doubt 
of  the  sceptic,  or  to  heal  all  the  diseases  of  the  troubled  in 
mind,  who  may  come  to  us,  in  the  hour  or  couple  of  hours 
after  our  preaching  in  the  church.  We  shall  bring  our- 
selves and  our  work  into  discredit,  and  hurt  more  souls  than 
we  help,  if  we  venture  to  do  so.  Let  us  not  repel  any,  let 
us  welcome  all ;  but  let  us  tell  them  plainly  that  we  need 
much  time,  and  inquiry,  and  thought,  and  study,  and  prayer, 
to  do  the  work  well.  Let  us  do  nothing,  let  us  say  nothing, 
in  a  hurry;  let  us  exhort  them  to  come  to  us  privately,  or 
to  some  wise,  learned,  and  holy  minister  of  God's  word,  that 
they  may  receive  comfort  and  counsel  from  him ;  above  all, 
let  us  exhort  them  to  more  careful  daily  examination  of  their 
own  souls  before  God,  and  to  study  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
which  will  be  a  "  lantern  unto  their  feet,  and  a  light  unto 
their  paths/5  and  to  more  earnest  and  frequent  prayer  to 


Words  to  church-workers. 


349 


God,  that  lie  will  make  His  way  plain  before  their  face.  If 
they  set  their  will  to  "  do  His  will,  they  will  know  of  the 
doctrine"  (John  vii.  17).  Where  the  heart  is  clean,  the 
mind  will  be  clear. 

And  now  to  you,  our  dear  sisters  in  Christ,  fellow-workers 
in  this  Mission,  let  me  say,  in  the  words  of  the  Apostle, 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  bond  nor  free,  male  nor 
female ;  we  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  He  was  cheered 
in  his  missionary  work  by  the  loving  help  of  Christian 
women.  His  greatest  Epistle,  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
was  carried,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  by  a  woman's  hand 
to  the  capital  of  the  world,  and  in  it  he  says  to  the  Romans, 
"  I  commend  unto  you  Phoebe,  our  sister,  a  servant  of  the 
Church  at  Cenchrete;"  and  in  it  he  salutes  many  of  his 
sisters  in  Christ.  "  Greet  Priscilla,  and  Aquila  (her  hus- 
band), my  helpers  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  have  for  my  life  laid 
down  their  own  necks ;  unto  whom  not  only  I  give  thanks, 

but  also  all  the  churches  of  the  Gentiles  Greet  Mary, 

who  bestowed  much  labour  on  us  Salute  Julia,  and 

the  sister  of  Nereus,  and  the  mother  of  Rufus,  and  mine. 
Salute  Tryphrena  and  Tryphosa,"  names  speaking  of  former 
worldly  voluptuousness,  exchanged  for  "  labour  in  the 
Lord."  We  entreat  you,  dearly  beloved,  to  help  us  in 
bringing  women,  especially  young  women,  to  the  Mission, 
and  in  training  those  who  need  your  care  for  Confirmation 
and  Holy  Communion.  And  now,  as  I  began  with  referring 
to  the  call  of  one  Hebrew  prophet,  Isaiah,  so  let  me  now 
conclude  with  the  promise  given  to  another — the  Prophet 
Daniel,  the  man  greatly  beloved — which  I  pray  God  may  be 
fulfilled  in  all  our  brethren  and  sisters  here  present, — "  They 
that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament ; 
and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for 
ever  and  ever."  "  Go  thou  thy  way  till  the  end  be ;  for 
thou  shalt  rest,  and  stand  in  thy  lot  at  the  end  of  the  days  " 
(Dan.  xii.  3,  18). 


350 


Miscellanies. 


THE  MISSION  COME. 

•  A  few  xvords  spoken  in  the  Cathedral  Church,  by  the  Bishop 
of  Lincoln,  to  the  people  on  the  first  day  of  the  Mission. 

Brethren,  this  is  the  first  day  of  our  Mission.  A  Mission 
is  a  solemn  appeal,  it  is  a  searching  trial  to  us  all.  Some 
words  have  been  spoken  already  to  the  Missioners  and 
Church-Workers  in  this  place.1  But,  believe  me,  the  fruit 
of  the  Mission  depends  as  much  upon  you  as  upon  them. 

In  proof  of  this,  consider  the  two  greatest  Missions  held 
by  the  two  greatest  Missioners  (with  reverence  be  it  said) 
who  ever  appeared  in  this  world. 

Who,  brethren,  were  they  ?  No  other  than  the  Second 
and  Third  Persons  of  the  Ever-Blessed  Trinity.  A  missioner 
means  one  who  is  sent.  Those  Two  Persons  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity  were  sent  from*  Heaven  on  a  great  Mission  to  the 
world.  Hear  the  words  of  our  adorable  Redeemer,  the 
Mighty  God  and  Saviour,  the  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity  :  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Me, 
and  to  finish  His  work  "  (John  iv.  34 ;  v.  23,  24,  30  ;  vi. 
38,  39,  &c).  And  "  As  My  Father  hath  sent  Me,  so  send  I 
you"  (John  xx.  21).  And  of  the  Third  Person  of  the 
Blessed  Trinity  He  says,  "  The  Comforter,  which  is  the 
Holy  Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  My  Name,  He 
shall  teach  you  all  things"  (John  xiv.  26).  "  When  the 
Comforter  is  come,  Whom  I  will  send  unto  you  from  the 
Father,  even  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  which  proceedeth  from  the 
Father,  He  shall  testify  of  Me"  (John  xv.  26).  These, 
then,  are  the  two  great  Missioners;  and  no  human  missioner 
can  think,  say,  or  do  anything  that  is  good,  except  he  be 
sent  and  empowered  by  them  both. 

And  what,  brethren,  was  the  greatest  Mission  ?  What 
the  most  solemn  Mission-week  which  the  world  ever  saw  ? 
Surely  it  was  the  week  of  our  Lord's  Passion.  Our  Blessed 
Lord  had  passed  the  Saturday  night  at  Bethany,  and  the 
next  day  everything  looked  bright.  It  was  Palm  Sunday, 
as  it  has  since  been  called,  and  He  rode  to  Jerusalem.  He 
had  wrought  a  great  miracle  in  Bethany,  by  raising  Lazarus 
1  Sep  above,  p.  314. 


Words  to  the  People. 


35  I 


from  the  dead,  and  the  people  knew  it,  and  met  Him,  and 
received  Him  with  acclamations  of  enthusiasm.  They  took 
branches  of  palm,  emblems  of  victory,  symbols  of  triumph, 
and  strewed'  them  in  the  way  before  Him,  as  a  mighty 
Conqueror.  They  spread  their  garments  in  His  path,  as  if 
they  were  ready  to  divest  themselves  of  all  their  earthly 
glory,  and  to  lay  it  at  the  feet  of  Christ. 

But  there  was  One  there — He  who  was  the  object  of  all 
this  jubilant  enthusiasm — He  to  whom  they  cried  "Hosanna 
to  the  Son  of  David  :  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  !  " — Who  knew  that  there  was  a  cloud  in 
the  horizon,  that  the  sunshine  would  soon  fade  away,  and 
that  the  heavens  would  be  covered  over  with  gloom.  He 
saw  beyond  that  ephemeral  triumph  ;  and  when  He  came 
near  the  city  He  wept  over  it :  and  why  ?  because  it  knew 
not  "the  day  of  its  visitation.'"  "0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem, 
thou  that  killest  the  prophets,  and  stonest  them  which  are 
sent  unto  thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  chil- 
dren together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under 
her  wings,  and  ye  would  not !  Behold,  your  house  is  left 
unto  you  desolate.  For  I  say  unto  you,  Ye  shall  not  see 
Me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say,  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  Though  everything  looked  so 
brilliant,  though  the  Temple  (recently  restored  by  Herod 
the  Great)  shone  with  marble  and  with  gold,  and  though 
some  of  His  disciples,  dazzled  by  the  splendid  spectacle, 
said  to  Him,  "  See  what  manner  of  stones  and  what  build- 
ings are  here,"  He  knew  that  not  one  stone  would,  soon 
be  left  standing  upon  another. 

Brethren,  there  was  scarcely  ever  a  time  when  there  was 
more  of  what  the  world  would  call  religious  demonstration 
than  during  that  Mission-week.  There  were  two  millions 
of  people  in  the  city,  there  were  crowds  of  worshippers  in 
the  synagogues  and  in  the  Temple,  and  they  joined  in 
rapturous  Hosannas  to  Christ.  How  fair  everything  looked, 
how  promising  everything  appeared  !  But,  remember,  that 
on  the  Monday  morning  of  the  Mission-week,  our  Lord  in 
returning  to  Jerusalem  saw  a  fig-tree  on  the  way.  It  had  a 
luxuriant  exuberance  of  leaves,  but  Christ  was  not  hungry 


35-7 


Miscellanies. 


for  leaves,  but  for  fruit.  "  Herein,"  He  said,  "  is  My  Father 
glorified,  that  ye  bear  much  fruit  "  (John  xv.  8) .  That  was 
what  He  craved;  and  because  He  found  leaves  only  and  not 
fruit,  what  did  He  say  ?  "  Let  no  man  eat  fruit  of  thee  here- 
after for  ever  "  (Mark  xi.  14).  He  blighted  the  leafy,  unfruit- 
ful fig-tree,  and  doomed  it  to  perpetual  barrenness.  Here 
was  a  figure  of  Jerusalem  itself ;  He  went  from  the  fig-tree 
to  the  Temple,  then  thronged  with  worshippers  (and  typified 
by  the  barren,  leafy  fig-tree),  and  said,  "  My  house  is  the 
house  of  prayer;  but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves." 
And  what  next  ?  Recollect  that  the  same  people  who  had 
gone  to  meet  Him,  coming  from  Bethany  on  the  Sunday, 
and  who  seemed  zealous  for  the  glory  of  the  Lord  at  the 
Passover  at  Jerusalem,  and  shouted  with  acclamations  and 
plaudits  of  enthusiasm  in  His  honour,  that  very  same  people 
on  the  Friday  joined  no  less  vociferously  in  the  cry,  "Crucify 
Him,  Crucify  Him!"  What  a  terrible  contrast!  "Hosanna 
to  the  Son  of  David !  "  and,  "  Crucify  Him  !  "  almost  in 
the  same  breath.  That  Mission  was  not  successful,  as  far 
as  the  people  were  concerned,  although  it  was  the  greatest 
Mission  held  by  the  greatest  Missioner  who  ever  preached 
to  the  world.  Rather  that  Mission  was  the  very  thing 
which  caused  their  guilt  to  overflow.  But  it  was  a  great 
success  in  the  death  of  Him  who  came  as  the  Missioner. 
There  was  a  rich  harvest,  not  by  life,  but  by  death. 
"Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die " 
(said  Christ  of  Himself)  "  it  abideth  alone  ;  but  if  it  die,  it 
bringeth  forth  much  fruit  "  (John  xii.  24).  Christ's  Death 
and  Resurrection  were  the  first-fruits  of  a  harvest  of  souls. 

Brethren,  what  thence  may  we  learn  ?  There  may  be 
great  religious  excitement  in  a  Mission ;  there  may  be  large 
congregations  flocking  to  the  churches  to  hear  the  Preacher ; 
they  may  talk  much  of  his  sermons  and  admire  his  eloquence : 
the  nave  and  aisles  of  the  churches  may  ring  with  the  sound 
of  jubilant  hymns,  and  with  the  chorus  of  hosannas  and 
hallelujahs.  There  may  be  fervent  demonstrations  of 
spiritual  excitement  in  "  after-meetings."  But  all  this  may 
be  only  like  the  foliage  of  the  fig-tree  on  the  wayside, 
rustling  in  the  vernal  breeze,  and  shining  brightly  in  the 


The  two  great  Missions. 


353 


sun, — bat  to  be  withered  by  the  breath  of  Christ.  It  may 
be  like  the  popular  enthusiasm  of  the  crowds  of  Jerusalem 
on  the  Sunday  of  the  Mission-week  of  the  Passion,  to  be 
followed  by  "crucify  Him"  on  the  Friday. 

Here,  brethren,  is  our  warning.  What  was  the  reason  of 
the  terrible  catastrophe  of  that  awful  week?  It  was  because 
the  people  were  self-satisfied ;  it  was  because  they  had  no 
sense  of  their  own  sinfulness,  and  because  they  imagined 
that,  while  they  were  in  the  grasp  of  the  Tempter,  they 
were  specially  favoured  of  God.  They  drew  nigh  unto  Him 
with  their  lips,  but  their  heart  was  far  from  Him  (Matt.  xv. 
8).  Therefore  "in  vain  do  they  worship  Me."  Spiritual 
pride  and  self-assurance;  a  hollow  form  of  godliness,  without 
the  power ;  a  hypocritical  semblance  of  piety,  varnishing 
over  the  inner  corruption  of  selfishness,  covetousness,  hard- 
heartedness,  and  sensuality,  which  lurked  beneath  that 
specious  surface,  and  showed  itself  at  last  in  the  hatred 
and  rejection  of  Him  Who  is  the  Truth,  and  Whose  Divine 
Eye  pierced  beneath  that  surface,  and  Whose  Divine  Voice 
denounced  eight  woes  against  that  hypocritical  nation  (Matt, 
xxiii.  13 — 29),  and  Who  at  last  sent  the  armies  of  Rome  to 
execute  vengeance  upon  them. 

Here  is  our  warning,  and  a  terrible  one  it  is. 

But,  thanks  be  to  God,  we  have  our  encouragement  also. 

Consider  the  next  great  Mission  to  the  world,  and  the 
second  Divine  Missioner.  Who  was  He  ?  It  was  He  whom 
Christ  sent  after  His  Ascension,  the  Holy  Ghost,  the 
Comforter.  Jesus  Christ  had  triumphed  over  death  and  the 
grave.  He  had  said,  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three 
days  I  will  raise  it  up."  He  ascended  nearly  at  the  place 
where  He  had  wept  over  Jerusalem — the  Mount  of  Olives. 
And  He  ascended  in  triumph.  And  then  He  sent  another 
Missioner  from  the  right  hand  of  the  Father.  Contemplate 
the  blessed  results  of  that  Mission.  The  first  great  Mission 
had  seemingly  failed,  because  it  came  to  a  self-complacent 
and  hypocritical  nation — a  nation  which  trusted  in  outward 
forms  and  ceremonies,  and  in  superficial  semblances  of  piety 
without  vital  religion. 

What,  then,  was  the  reason  that  this  other  Mission  was 
vol.  in.  A  a 


354 


Miscellanies. 


so  successful  ?  It  was  not  only  because  St.  Peter  who 
preached  to  the  people,  did  not  trust  in  himself,  but  in 
Christ,  and  was  animated  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  Whom  Christ 
had  sent ;  and  stood  forward  bravely,  so  that  he  who  had  been  a 
coward  at  Passover  was  a  hero  at  Pentecost.  True  it  is, 
that  all  missioners  must  have  the  gift  of  God's  grace  if  they 
would  assert  unpopular  truths  against  popular  errors  ;  with 
that  gift,  he  who  had  thrice  denied  his  Master,  afterwards 
stood  forward  and  confessed  Him  in  the  presence  of  those 
who  crucified  Him.  Not  only  this  :  St.  Peter  preached  to 
the  people  the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord,  and  His  Ascension. 
He  told  them,  as  the  Psalmist  had  said,  "  The  Lord  said 
unto  my  Lord,  Sit  Thou  on  My  right  hand,  until  I  make 
Thy  foes  Thy  footstool."  And  he  added,  "Therefore  let 
all  the  house  of  Israel  know  assuredly,  that  God  hath  made 
that  same  Jesus,  Whom  ye  have  crucified,  both  Lord  and 
Christ." 

But,  observe,  the  People  now  did  their  part.  What  a 
change  had  been  wrought  in  them  between  Passover  and 
Pentecost  !  There  was  a  vast  multitude,  but  it  was  no 
longer  a  multitude  like  that  of  the  Passion-week ;  it  differed 
from  it  in  this — the  multitude  in  the  Passion-week  were 
self-satisfied;  at  Pentecost  they  were  dissatisfied  with 
themselves.  Their  consciences  were  stricken  by  a  sense  of 
sin,  and,  "  being  pricked  in  their  heart,  they  said  to  Peter 
and  to  the  rest  of  the  Apostles,  Men  and  brethren,  vjhat 
shall  we  do?"  (Acts  ii.  37). 

Brethren,  let  us  also  be  pricked  in  our  own  hearts  with  a 
sense  of  sin,  and  then  there  will  be  good  hope  of  the  success 
of  our  Mission.  We  must  examine  ourselves,  and  repent. 
St.  Peter's  answer  to  the  people  was,  "  Repent,  and  be 
baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  for 
the  remission  of  sins,  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."  "  Then  they  that  gladly  received  his  word 
were  baptized :  and  the  same  day  there  were  added  unto 
them  about  three  thousand  souls."  This  was  the  result  of 
the  second  Mission.  The  difference,  you  see,  was  not  in  the 
Missioner,  but  in  the  People.  Even  if  we  could  have  Christ 
coming  into  the  world  again,  even  if  we  had  the  Holy  Ghost 


What  is  to  be  done  at  the  Mission.  355 


coming  down  upon  us  from  heaven,  yet,  if  the  seed  of  the 
Word  falls  on  the  wayside,  or  upon  stony  places,  or  among 
thorns,  it  will  be  unfruitful.  But  let  us  hope  better  things 
in  this  Mission.  Many  will  be  pricked  in  their  heart,  and 
many  will  ask,  "  Men  and  brethren,  what  shall  we  do  ?  " 
and  the  answer  is,  "  Eepent,  and  ye  shall  receive  remission 
of  sins."  "  Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be 
white  as  snow  ;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall 
be  as  wool  "  (Isaiah  i.  18).  The  word  and  the  promise  are 
to  all  :  "  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the 
dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light"  (Eph.  v.  14).  "The 
wages  of  sin  is  death  "  (Rom.  vi.  23).  The  hour  is  coming*, 
when  all  that  are  in  the  graves  will  hear  the  voice  of  the 
Son  of  God,  and  will  come  forth,  to  be  judged  according  to 
their  works,  either  to  everlasting  bliss,  or  eternal  woe  (John 
v.  28);  He  will  be  revealed  "in  flaming  fire  taking  ven- 
geance on  them  that  know  not  God,  and  that  obey  not  the 
Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  shall  be  punished 
with  everlasting  destruction"  (2  Thess.  i.  7 — 9).  But 
there  is  rest  in  Christ  for  the  weary  and  heavy-laden  (Matt, 
xi.  28)  ;  in  Him  there  is  "  a  fountain  opened  for  sin  and 
for  uncleanness  "  (Zech.  xiii.  1)  ;  "if  we  walk  in  the  light 
as  He  is  in  the  light,  ....  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ "  the 
Son  of  God  "  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin"  (1  John  i.  7)  :  there 
is  perfect  pardon  and  peace — infinite  and  eternal — in  Him, 
and  in  Him  alone,  to  all  who  truly  turn  to  Him  with  faith 
and  repentance,  and  sincere  purpose  of  amendment  of  life. 
He  tasted  death  for  every  man  (Heb.  ii.  9).  He  gave 
Himself  a  ransom  for  all  (1  Tim.  ii.  6)  •  and  whosoever 
cometh  to  Him  He  will  in  no  wise  cast  out  (John  vi.  37); 
He  will  give  them  the  Holy  Ghost  if  they  pray  earnestly  for 
Him,  to  enable  them  to  do  His  will,  and  to  bring  forth  the 
fruits  of  the  Sj)irit,  which  are  "  love,  joy,  peace,  long- 
suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness, temperance" 
(Gal.  v.  22)  ;  and  finally  He  will  give  a  crown  of  life 
immortal  to  all  who  believe,  love,  and  obey  Him. 

Observe,  brethren,  that  the  result  of  the  Mission  at 
Pentecost  was  not  transitory  and  evanescent ;  we  are  ex- 
pressly told  that  "they  who  received  the  Word  continued 


356 


Miscellanies. 


steadfastly  in  the  Apostles'  doctrine  and  fellowship,  and  in 
breaking  of  bread,  and  in  prayers"  (Acts  ii.  42). 

Note,  I  entreat  you,  the  force  of  each  of  these  words  : 
"  They  continued  steadfastly  ;  "  they  were  not  like  the  seed 
of  which  our  Lord  speaks,  which  fell  on  stony  ground, 
where  it  had  no  root,  and  when  the  sun  was  up  was  scorched 
and  withered  away  (Matt.  xiii.  G.  Mark  iv,  6).  They  were 
not  offended  when  persecution  arose  because  of  the  Word. 
No,  they  continued  steadfastly,  rooted,  established,  and 
settled  in  the  faith.  They  were  not  like  Orpah,  of  whom  it 
is  said  that  when  the  time  of  trial  came,  she  kissed  her 
mother-in-law  Naomi,  and  bade  her  farewell,  and  returned 
to  the  land  of  Moab  and  of  Chemosh;  but  they  were  like 
Ruth,  who  clave  to  her,  and  went  with  her  to  Bethlehem, 
and  became  an  ancestress  of  Christ  (Ruth  i.  14).  They 
were  not  like  Demas,  who  for  a  time  was  a  fellow -labourer 
with  St.  Paul  (Col.  iv.  14),  but  in  the  hour  of  danger, 
when  he  was  most  needed,  slunk  away  in  fear,  and  who 
"  loved  this  present  world  "  more  than  Christ  and  His 
Gospel ;  and  forsook  Paul,  the  Lord's  prisoner  at  Rome,  on 
the  eve  of  his  martyrdom,  and  departed  unto  Thessalonica 
(2  Tim.  iv.  10).  But  they  were  like  "Luke,  the  beloved 
physician,"  "  whose  praise  is  in  the  Gospel "  (2  Cor.  viii. 
18),  who  remained,  though  alone,  with  the  Apostle  (2  Tim. 
iv.  11),  and,  like  him,  they  endured  unto  the  end,  and  were 
saved  (Matt.  xxiv.  13).  "By  patient  continuance  in  well- 
doing "  they  sought  "  for  glory,  and  honour,  and  immor- 
tality "  (Rom.  ii.  7) .  They  were  faithful  unto  death,  and 
therefore  they  will  receive  a  crown  of  life  (Rev.  ii.  10)  from 
Him  Who  "  is  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life "  (John  xi. 
25). 

And,  brethren,  in  what  did  they  continue  steadfastly  ? 
"In  the  Apostles' doctrine  and  fellowship."  The  Apostles' 
doctrine — or  teaching.  What  was  that  ?  Not  merely 
articles  of  faith,  but  also  acts  of  duty.  They  did  indeed 
continue  in  the  faith,  for  "without  faith  it  is  impossible  to 
please  God  "  (Heb.  xi.  6).  And  "  he  that  believeth  and  is 
baptized  shall  be  saved,  but  he  that  believeth  not "  (says 
Christ)  "shall  be  damned"  (Mark  xvi.   16).     And  His 


Fruits  of  the  Mission. 


357 


Apostles?  declare  that  there  is  but  "  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one 
baptism"  (Eph.  iv.  5),  and  they  charge  us  to  fight  the  good 
fight  of  faith  (1  Tim.  vi.  12),  and  to  "contend  earnestly  for 
the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  Saints  "  (Jude  3). 

But,  brethren,  the  word  doctrine,  or  teaching,  means  much 
more  than  this  ;  it  means  that  living  faith  which  worheth  by 
love  (Gal.  v.  6).  The  great  Apostolic  preacher  of  the  Pente- 
costal Mission,  St.  Peter,  says,  "Giving  all  diligence,  add  to 
your  faith  virtue;  and  to  virtue  knowledge ;  and  to  know- 
ledge temperance;  and  to  temperance  patience;  and  to 
patience  godliness ;  and  to  godliness  brotherly  kindness ; 
and  to  brotherly  kindness  charity.  For  if  these  things  be 
in  you,  and  abound,  they  make  you  that  ye  shall  neither  be 
barren  nor  unfruitful  in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ"  (2  Pet.  i.  5 — 8).  And  look  at  the  second  chapter 
of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  Titus,  and  see  how  he  applies  the 
word  doctrine,  which  occurs  there  three  times,  to  the  daily 
duties  of  life  :  the  duties  of  old  men  and  young  men,  of  old 
women  and  young  women,  of  husbands  and  wives,  of  mas- 
ters and  servants ;  who  are  exhorted  "  to  adorn  the  doctrine 
of  God  our  Saviour  in  all  things"  (Titus  ii.  10). 

And  what  more  ?  After  this  great  Mission  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  the  believers  continued  steadfastly  not  only  in  the 
Apostles'  doctrine,  but  in  the  Apostles'  felloivship.  They 
were  not  split  up  into  sects  and  parties,  as  so  many  are 
nowadays.  No,  there  were  no  divisions  among  them  :  "  all 
that  believed  were  together ;  "  united,  by  visible  acts  of 
communion,  in  one  holy  bond  of  truth  and  peace,  of  faith 
and  charity,  in  the  Church  of  God. 

And  how  did  they  show  their  fellowship  with  the  Apostles? 
By  joining  together  with  them  in  the  breaking  of  bread,  that 
is,  in  the  reception  of  the  Holy  Communion,  and  "  in  the 
prayers "  of  the  Church.  Thus  they  dwelt  together  as 
members  of  the  mystical  Body  of  Christ;  and  by  being 
united  as  fellow-members  in  Him,  they  received  grace ;  they 
were  branches  of  the  true  Vine,  and  by  abiding  in  Him, 
they  were  enabled  to  bring  forth  much  fruit.  They  drank 
in  the  spiritual  sap  of  the  Vine,  and  thus  were  enabled  to 
put  forth,  as  it  were,  not  only  beautiful  green  leaves,  but 


358 


Miscellanies. 


also  to  bear  rich  fruit  of  purple  and  golden  clusters  of  good 
works  in  their  daily  lives  (John  xv.  1 — 17). 

Mark,  as  a  consequence  of  this  union  with  one  another  in 
Christ,  they  that  believed  "  had  all  things  common ;  and 
sold  their  possessions  and  goods,  and  farted  ilicm  to  all 
men,  as  every  man  had  need  "  (Acts  ii.  44,  45) . 

In  our  own  days  we  hear  much  of  "  communism  and 
socialism."  There  is,  brethren,  a  genuine  communism  and 
true  socialism — that  of  Christianity.  There  we  have  the 
substance ;  the  world  offers  only  the  shadow.  In  the 
Church  of  God,  after  that  great  Mission-week  of  Pentecost, 
"  the  multitude  of  them  that  believed,"  we  read,  "  were  of 
one  heart  and  of  one  soul  :  neither  said  any  of  them,  that 
ought  of  the  things  which  he  possessed  was  his  own;  but 
they  had  all  things  common.  .  .  .  Neither  was  there  any 
among  them  that  lacked :  for  as  many  as  were  possessors  of 
lands  or  houses  sold  them,  and  brought  the  prices  of  the 
things  that  were  sold,  and  laid  them  down  at  the  apostles' 
feet :  and  distribution  was  made  unto  every  man  according 
as  he  had  need  "  (Acts  iv.  32,  34,  35).  Nor  did  they  regret 
those  generous  acts  of  self-sacrifice.  No,  they  rejoiced  in 
them .  "  They,  continuing  daily  with  one  accord  in  the 
Temple,  and  breaking  bread  from  house  to  house"  (or 
rather,  at  home  in  their  own  Christian  assembly,  or  church), 
"  did  eat  their  meat  with_  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart ; 
praising  God,  and  having  favour  with  all  the  people;  and 
the  Lord  added  to  the  Church  daily  such  as  should  be 
saved  "  (Acts  ii.  4G,  47),  or,  rather,  such  as  were  accepting 
the  gracious  offers  of  salvation. 

Brethren,  here  is  our  pattern  and  encouragement.  Let 
us  endeavour  to  reproduce  that  grace  and  glory  of  primitive 
faith,  piety,  and  love,  which  shone  so  brightly  when  the  field 
of  the  Church  was  spangled  with  the  fresh  morning  dews  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  from  heaven. 

We  are  too  well  satisfied  with  ourselves;  we  ought  to 
examine  ourselves  and  compare  our  own  practice  with  that 
standard  of  duty.  A  new  Domesday  Book  of  England  and 
Wales  has  just  been  published  in  two  large  quarto  volumes, 
and  has  been  presented  by  Her  Most  Gracious  Majesty  to 


IV hat  are  to  be  the  fruits  of  a  Mission  f 


359 


both  Houses  of  Parliament.  There  we  see  a  long  catalogue 
of  wide  demesnes,  a  rich  rent-roll  of  princely  revenues.  It 
would  be  a  national  shame  to  imagine  that,  in  this  nineteenth 
century,  when  Bibles  are  so  plentiful,  and  there  is  such  a 
loud  profession  of  religious  zeal,  and  so  much  talk  about 
charity  and  philanthropy  at  public  meetings,  there  are  not 
many  persons  in  that  long  list  of  many  hundred  pages  who 
would  not  willingly  imitate  the  spirit  which  animated  the 
Church  of  the  Apostles.  "  There  is  no  man  "  (says  Christ) 
"  that  bath  left  house  or  lands  for  My  sake  and  the  gospel's, 
who  shall  not  receive  manifold  more  in  this  present  time  " 
(in  the  consciousness  of  God's  favour),  "  and  in  the  world 
to  come  life  everlasting"  (Mark  x.  29.  Luke  xviii.  29). 

Brethren,  let  us  do  what  we  can.  Let  us  take  heed  to 
ourselves.  A  Mission  is  a  perilous  thing.  It  may  be  a 
great  blessing  ;  but  it  may  be  a  great  bane.  It  will  be  to 
us  as  we  use  it.  There  is  no  greater  danger  in  our  spiritual 
life  than  in  having  our  feelings  excited  without  practical 
results.  Religious  emotions  without  religious  actions,  and 
religious  habits,  are  specious  delusions  and  subtle  im- 
postures, by  which  our  ghostly  Enemy  would  beguile  us  (as 
he  beguiled  the  Jews),  into  assuring  ourselves  that  we  are 
God's  favourites,  while  we  are  victims  of  the  Tempter.  Let 
us  beware  of  this  dangerous  self-deception.  Let  us  not 
imagine  that  we  can  snatch  salvation  by  some  spasmodic  act 
of  personal  self-assurance.  Feelings  are  not  Faith.  The 
tree  is  known  by  its  fruit.  Let  us  not  be  leafy,  barren  fig- 
trees.  Let  the  fruit  of  the  Mission  be  seen  in  our  lives. 
Let  it  be  seen  in  ourselves,  in  our  households,  in  our 
parishes.  Let  it  be  seen  in  more  of  prayer  private  and 
public,  and  in  daily  study  of  the  Bible.  Let  us  examine 
ourselves.  Is  there  any  among  u"s  who  is  conscious  of  being 
guilty  of  some  great  sin  against  God's  holy  law  ?  "  Then, 
thou  art  the  man."  The  Mission  is  for  thee.  Is  there  any 
addicted  to  intemperance  ?  "  Thou  art  the  man."  The 
Mission  is  for  thee.  Is  there  any  guilty  of  sins  of  unclean- 
ness,  fornication,  adultery,  lasciviousness  ?  "  Thou  art  the 
man."  The  Mission  is  for  thee.  Remember  the  words  of 
God  in  His  Holy  Book,  "  They  that  do  such  things,  shall 


360 


Miscellanies. 


not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God"  (1  Cor.  vi.  9.  Gal.  v.  21). 
"  Because  of  these  things,  the  wrath  of  God  cometh  on  the 
children  of  disobedience"  (Eph.  v.  6.  Col.  iii.  G).  Thy 
body  is  a  "  Temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  and  "  if  any  man 
defile  the  temple  of  God,  him  will  God  destroy"  (1  Cor. 
iii.  17).  "Thy  body  is  a  member  of  Christ"  (1  Cor.  vi. 
15).  Wilt  thou  desecrate  what  belongs  to  the  Holy  One? 
God  forbid.  "  They  that  sow  to  the  flesh,  shall  of  the  flesh 
reap  corruption ;" — the  everlasting  corruption  of  the  "worm 
that  dieth  not,"  and  the  anguish  of  "  the  fire  that  is  not 
quenched"  (Mark  ix.  44,  46,  48).  But  they  that  sow  to 
the  "  Spirit,  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  everlasting  "  (Gal. 
vi.  7,  8).  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see 
God"  (Matt,  v.  8). 

Consider,  beloved  brethren  and  sisters  in  Christ,  what 
joy  there  is  among  the  angels  of  heaven  when  they  behold 
one  sinner  turning  to  God  by  repentance.  Think  of  the 
holy  angels  now  looking  down  upon  you,  and  waiting  to 
rejoice  in  your  salvation,  and  to  welcome  you  to  those  un- 
speakable delights  which  "  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  Him  "  (1  Cor. 
ii.  9). 

But  you  are  members  one  of  another;  therefore  apply 
the  lesson  of  the  Mission  not  only  to  yourselves  singly,  but 
to  yourselves  collectively.  Fathers  and  Mothers  of  children, 
Masters  and  Mistresses  of  families,  Employers  of  labour, 
do  you  realize  the  fact,  that  you  are  accountable  to  God  for 
those  "  within  your  gates "  ?  May  the  number  of  those 
among  us  be  greatly  increased,  of  whom  God  will  speak  as 
He  spoke  of  Abraham  His  friend,  who  had  318  servants 
(Gen.  xiv.  14),  and  who  cared  for  them  all  (Gen.  xvii.  23). 
"I  know  him,  that  he  will  command  his  children  and  his 
household  after  him,  and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  the 
Lord"  (Gen.  xviii.  19) ;  and  who  will  say  with  Joshua,  the 
type  of  Jesus,  "  Choose  you  .  .  .  whom  ye  will  serve;  .  .  .  . 
as  for  me  and  nuj  house,  we  will  serve  the  Lord  "  (Josh, 
xxiv.  15).  Would  that  all  great  capitalists  would  lay  these 
things  to  heart  !   How  blessed  would  they  then  be  in  this 


Practical  results  of  the  Mission. 


361 


life,  and  for  over  !  Let  every  household  resolve  to  begin 
every  day  with  family  prayer. 

Again,  is  there  any  one  who  harbours  malice  against 
another — any  who  says  he  will  not  forgive  his  neighbour 
such  and  such  a  wrong  ?  If  there  is,  such  a  man  says  that 
he  is  determined  not  to  go  to  heaven,  for  no  one  who  will 
not  forgive,  can  enter  there.  The  Lord,  who  is  the  judge 
of  the  quick  and  the  dead,  says,  "  If  ye  forgive  not  men 
their  trespasses,  neither  will  your  Father  forgive  you  your 
trespasses  "  (Matt.  vi.  14,  15).  And  if  your  trespasses  are 
not  forgiven,  you  will  be  "  cast  into  outer  darkness,  where 
will  be  weeping,  and  wailing,  and  gnashing  of  teeth"  for 
ever.  But  "  if  ye  forgive,  ye  shall  be  forgiven ;  "  and 
"  Blessed  are  the  merciful :  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy  " 
(Matt.  v.  7).  This  Mission-week,  I  trust,  will  see  many 
reconciliations. 

Again,  there  are  the  sins  of  fraud.  By  deceiving  others  a 
man  destroys  himself.  May  it  not  be  hoped  that  many  will 
resolve  to  make  no  sacrifice  of  truth  ?  for  by  sacrificing  the 
truth  they  sacrifice  their  own  souls.  May  it  not  be  hoped 
that  any  who  have  wronged  others,  may  now  resolve  to  make 
restitution,  and  so  be  restored  to  peace  in  their  own  con- 
sciences and  to  favour  with  God  ? 

And  let  not  only  each  person  individually,  domestically, 
and  socially  make  the  Mission  a  time  for  some  definite  work, 
— some  vigorous  struggle  against  evil, — some  steady 
advance  in  what  is  good;  but  let  each  Parish  engage 
parochially  in  some  new  enterprise  of  piety  and  virtue ; 
some  design  for  helping  Missions  at  home  and  abroad;  some 
work  of  school  improvement  and  organization ;  some  plan  of 
Church  building  or  Church  restoration ;  some  addition  to 
the  parochial  endowments  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
spiritual  and  temporal  benefit  of  the  poor.  Let  all  who  are 
able  associate  themselves,  under  the  guidance  of  their 
Pastors,  as  Sunday  School  teachers,  or  district  visitors,  and 
collectors  of  funds  for  Missions,  and  in  preparing  children 
for  Baptism  and  Confirmation.  Then,  indeed,  the  fruit  of 
the  Mission  will  abound  and  abide. 

And,  lastly,  let  us  remember  that  there  is  a  Great  Mission 


362 


Miscellanies. 


to  Come ; — a  Mission  from  heaven  not  only  to  single  souls, 
or  to  single  cities,  or  single  nations,  but  to  the  whole  World. 
•  A  Mission  to  the  Dead  and  to  the  Living.  Christ,  the  Great 
Missioner,  who  .came  in  Passion  Week  to  Jerusalem,  He 
Who  came  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  World,  He  Who  sent 
forth  His  Apostles  as  His  Missioners  to  evangelize  all 
nations,  He  Who  sent  the  Holy  Ghost  from  heaven  at 
Pentecost  to  regenerate  and  sanctify  humanity,  He  Who 
sends  all  Missioners  in  every  age,  will  come  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven  with  power  and  great  glory,  and  will  send  forth  His 
holy  Angels  as  Missioners  to  gather  His  elect  from  the  four 
winds  (Matt.  xiii.  14)  ;  and  to  separate  the  evil  from  the 
good ;  to  cast  the  tares  into  the  fire,  and  to  gather  the 
wheat  into  His  barn.  At  that  great  Day,  dearly  beloved, 
may  it  please  Him  to  reap  a  rich  harvest  from  this  place. 
May  none  of  you  be  amongst  those  bundles  of  tares  that 
will  then  be  cast  into  the  fire.  May  there  be  a  rich  har- 
vesting of  corn  from  this  place.  On  that  great  Mission-day 
may  you  be  stored  in  the  garner  of  the  Lord ;  and  may  the 
Missioners  who  by  God's  grace  have  now  come  to  labour 
among  us,  then  "  come  again  with  joy,  and  bring  their 
sheaves  with  them  "  (Ps.  cxxvi.  7). 


Prayer  after  the  Mission. 

Almighty  God,  Giver  of  all  good  gifts,  we  render  unto 
Thee  humble  and  hearty  thanks  for  the  blessings  vouchsafed 
to  tho  work  of  the  Mission  in  this  place.  Grant  that  its 
fruit  may  abound  and  abide,  to  Thy  honour  and  glory,  the 
spreading  forth  of  Thy  Gospel,  the  increase  of  Thy  King- 
dom, and  the  salvation  of  immortal  souls.  Give  grace  to  all 
Pastors  of  thy  flock,  and  Preachers  of  Thy  Word,  that  they 
may  be  examples  of  the  believers  in  conversation,  in  charity, 
in  spirit,  in  faith  and  purity ;  and  on  all  hearers  of  Thy 
Word  send,  we  beseech  Thee,  0  Lord,  Thy  heavenly  bless- 
ing, that  they  may  be  grounded,  settled,  and  established  in 
the  faith,  joyful  through  hope,  and  rooted  in  charity ;  and 
by  patient  continuance  in  well-doing  may  seek  for  glory 
and  honour  and  immortality.    Grant,  that  being  alway  pre- 


After  the  Mission. 


363 


served  in  the  Unity  of  the  Church,  and  steadfastly  abiding 
in  the  Apostles'  doctrine  and  fellowship,  and  in  the  breaking 
of  bread  and  in  prayers,  they  may  adorn  the  doctrine  of  God 
our  Saviour  in  all  things ;  and  constantly  enduring  unto  the 
end,  and  being  faithful  unto  death,  may  receive  a  crown  of 
everlasting  glory  from  Him  Who  is  the  Resurrection  and 
the  Life;  and  that  we  together  with  them  may  rejoice  for 
ever  in  Thy  heavenly  Kingdom,  through  the  merits  and 
mediation  of  thy  dearly -beloved  Son  Jesus  Christ,  Who  with 
Thee  and  the  Holy  Ghost  liveth  and  reigneth,  One  God  world 
without  end.  Amen. 


A  PASTORAL  LETTER  FROM  THE  BISHOP  AFTER 
THE  MISSION. 

TO  THE  INHABITANTS  OP  LINCOLN. 

My  dear  Friends, — In  the  name  of  my  brethren,  the  Clergy, 
and  my  own,  let  me  invite  you  to  join  with  us  in  thankful- 
ness to  Almighty  God,  the  Giver  of  all  good  gifts,  for  the 
blessings  vouchsafed  to  the  work  of  the  Mission  in  this 
City. 

It  has  been  a  great  joy  to  us,  and  to  many  among  you, 
that  the  Mission,  which  began  on  the  morning  of  Saturday 
week  with  Holy  Communion  in  the  Cathedral,  the  Mother 
Church  of  the  City  and  the  Diocese,  has  been  continued 
with  growing  life  and  energy,  day  after  day  for  nine  days, 
by  a  simultaneous  effort  in  the  twelve  Churches  of  the  City; 
and  that  thus  we  have  all  been  united  in  one  holy  bond  of 
truth  and  peace,  of  faith  and  charity,  for  the  Glory  of  God 
and  the  salvation  of  souls. 

The  able  and  zealous  Ministers  of  the  Gospel  who  have 
come  to  us  as  Missioners,  do  not  look  for  their  reward  upon 
earth,  or  for  the  praise  of  men.  But  we  esteem  them  very 
highly  for  their  work's  sake,  and  you  will  join  with  us,  I  am 
sure,  in  gratitude  for  their  labour  of  love,  and  in  hearty 
prayer  that  the  good  seed  sown  by  them  in  many  hearts 


364 


Miscellanies. 


may  be  rendered  to  them  in  abundant  blessings  at  the  Great 
Day  of  Harvest. 

The  Lay  helpers  in  our  parishes,  our  beloved  brethren 
and  sisters  in  Christ,  have  effectually  aided  in  the  work  ; 
and  they  will  allow  me  to  request  a  continuance  of  their 
valuable  assistance  to  the  Clergy  in  bringing  children  to 
baptism,  and  in  teaching  in  Schools  and  at  Bible  Classes, 
especially  as  preparatory  to  the  Confirmations,  which  will  be 
held  by  me  at  Lincoln,  and  by  my  dear  Brother,  the  Bishop 
Suffragan  of  Nottingham,  at  a  suitable  interval  after  the 
Mission. 

To  our  Nonconformist  brethren,  especially  to  Noncon- 
formist ministers,  let  me  be  allowed  to  say,  that  it  is  far 
more  gratifying  to  us  to  dwell  on  those  great  fundamental 
truths,  in  which  we  agree  with  them,  than  to  refer  to  those 
things  (of  which  I  do  not  disguise  the  importance)  in  which 
we  differ  from  them ;  but  let  me  be  allowed  to  assure  them 
of  our  love  for  the  words  of  good-will  and  brotherly  kind- 
ness, with  which  they  wished  us  God  Speed  in  the  Mission ; 
and  let  me  express  an  earnest  desire  and  give  utterance  to  a 
fervent  prayer  that  the  day  may  come,  when  they  will  be 
wholly  united  with  us,  and  we  with  them,  in  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  Christian  doctrine  and  discipline,  as  delivered  by 
our  common  Lord  and  Master  in  Holy  Scripture,  and  as  re- 
ceived by  the  Holy  Apostles,  and  by  the  Apostolic  Churches 
at  the  beginning.  We  should  then  have  nothing  to  fear 
from  the  powerful  assaults  of  our  common  enemies,  Bo- 
manism,  Secularism,  and  Infidelity ;  and  we  might  hope  to 
join  together  in  a  great  and  glorious  Mission  against  those 
heinous  vices  and  deadly  Sins,  Intemperance,  Sensuality, 
Selfishness,  and  Covetousness,  which  are  now  threatening  to 
destroy  the  peace  and  happiness  of  English  homes,  and  to 
poison  the  life-blood  of  the  English  nation. 

The  great  Capitalists  of  Lincoln  have  cordially  welcomed 
the  Missioners  to  their  foundries  and  factories.  God  be 
praised !  They  will,  we  are  sure,  receive  a  blessing  from 
Him,  far  transcending  all  worldly  wealth,  which  is  transitory 
and  fickle,  for  all  endeavours  on  their  part  to  procure  to 
those  in  their  employ  a  share  in  those  heavenly  and  eternal 


4/ter  the  Mission. 


365 


riches,  wliicli  He,  Who  is  the  Lord  of  all,  has  prepared  for 
them  that  love  Him,  and  to  promote  the  salvation  of  those 
for  whom  Christ  died  upon  the  Cross. 

To  you,  my  friends  and  brethren,  the  Tradesmen  of  Lin- 
coln, let  me  offer  hearty  thanks  for  your  ready  compliance 
with  the  request  addressed  to  you  by  me,  in  the  name  of  the 
Clergy  and  my  own,  that  your  premises  might  be  closed  at 
such  an  hour,  during  the  days  of  the  Mission,  as  would 
afford  to  those  in  your  employ  an  opportunity  of  attending 
its  services.  May  the  divine  blessing  be  with  you  in  your 
families,  and  prosper  you  in  all  your  undertakings,  in  re- 
turn for  this  and  all  your  other  acts  of  piety  and  brotherly 
love. 

Nor  let  it  be  forgotten  that  the  public  Press  of  Lincoln, 
by  its  organs  on  different  sides  of  political  opinion,  has  united 
in  aiding  the  Mission  by  full  reports  of  its  work,  and  has 
thus  proved  an  efficient  instrument  and  powerful  coadjutor 
in  diffusing  its  influence  and  its  usefulness.  Thus  the  Mission- 
week  has  been  a  happy  truce  to  the  strife  of  political  parties, 
and  has  given  us  a  delightful  foretaste  of  that  blessed  time 
when  all  controversies  will  cease,  and  there  will  be  no  watch- 
word but  Love. 

Suffer  me  now,  my  dear  friends,  to  add  a  few  words  of 
exhortation.  The  calm  and  steady  quietness,  and  the  de- 
vout and  vigorous  earnestness,  with  which  the  work  of 
the  Mission  has  been  conducted,  are  happy  auguries  of  its 
success. 

But  bear  with  me  for  saying,  that  if  we  desire  it  to  be 
owned  by  Almighty  God  at  the  Great  Day,  when  every 
man's  work  will  be  tried  by  a  severe  and  searching  ordeal 
(1  Cor.  iii.  13),  we  must  regard  the  Mission  as  only  a  begin- 
ning, a  "  day  of  small  things"  (Zech.  iv.  10). 

Let  us  beware  of  sitting  still,  and  folding  our  arms,  and 
of  settling  on  our  lees  (Zeph.  i.  10).  There  is  no  greater 
danger  in  our  spiritual  life  than  in  having  our  feelings  ex- 
cited without  practical  results.  Eeligious  emotions  without 
religious  actions  and  religious  habits  are  specious  delusions 
and  subtle  impostures,  by  which  our  ghostly  Enemy  would 
beguile  us  into  assuring  ourselves  that  we  are  God's  fa- 


Miscellanies. 


vourites  while  we  are  victims  of  the  Tempter.  Let  us  be- 
ware of  this  dangerous  self-deception.  Feelings  are  not 
Faith.  The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruit  (Luke  vi.  44).  Let 
the  fruit  of  the  Mission  be  seen  in  our  lives.  Let  it  be  seen 
in  ourselves,  in  our  households,  in  our  parishes.  Let  it  be  seen 
in  more  of  prayer,  and  in  more  careful  study  of  God's  Holy 
Word.  Let  each  person  amoug  us,  let  each  household,  let 
each  parish  in  Lincoln,  resolve  with  God's  help  to  renounce 
all  that  is  evil,  and  to  abound  more  and  more  in  good  works. 
This  will  be  a  sure  evidence  that  our  hearts  have  not  been 
stirred  by  Him  in  vain  during  the  Mission.  And  since  all 
our  endeavours  will  be  fruitless,  unless  they  are  quickened, 
guided,  strengthened,  and  sanctified  by  His  Holy  Spirit,  let 
me  entreat  you,  my  dear  friends  and  brethren,  to  pray  to 
Him  earnestly  for  yourselves  and  for  us,  and  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  His  blessing  to  the  Mission;  and  therefore  let 
me  add  to  this  letter  a  prayer  that  may  be  used  at  your 
private  and  household  devotions.  And  may  the  Peace  of 
God,  which  passeth  all  understanding,  keep  your  hearts  and 
minds  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God  and  of  His  Son 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord ;  and  the  Blessing  of  God  Almighty, 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  be  amongst  you 
and  remain  with  you  always.  Amen. 

I  am, 

Your  faithful  brother  and  servant  in  the  Lord, 

C.  Lincoln. 

Riseholme,  Lincoln, 

Ash  Wednesday,  1876. 

[I  venture  to  re-introduce  here  the  following,  from  p.  3G2]. 

Thanksgiving  and  Prayer  after  the  Mission. 
Almighty  God,  Giver  of  all  good  gifts,  we  render  unto 
Thee  humble  and  hearty  thanks  for  the  blessings  vouchsafed 
to  the  work  of  the  Mission  in  this  City.  Not  unto  us,  0 
Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  Name  be  the  praise.  Grant 
that  its  fruit  may  abound  and  abide  to  Thy  honour  and  glory, 
the  spreading  forth  of  Thy  Gospel,  the  increase  of  Thy  King- 
dom, and  the  Salvation  of  immortal  Souls.  Give  grace  to  all 
Pastors  of  Thy  flock,  and  Preachers  of  Thy  Word,  that  they 


sifter  the  Mission. 


367 


may  be  examples  of  the  believers  in  conversation,  in  charity, 
in  spirit,  in  faith  and  purity  ;  and  on  all  hearers  of  Thy  Word 
send,  we  beseech  Thee,  0  Lord,  Thy  heavenly  blessing,  that 
they  may  be  grounded,  settled,  and  stablished  in  the  faith, 
joyful  through  hope,  and  rooted  in  charity  ;  and  by  patient 
continuance  in  well-doing  may  seek  for  glory  and  honour 
and  immortality.  Grant,  that  they  being  always  preserved 
in  the  Unity  of  the  Church,  and  steadfastly  abiding  in  the 
Apostles'  doctrine  and  fellowship,  and  in  the  breaking  of 
bread  and  in  prayers,  may  adorn  the  doctrine  of  God  our 
Saviour  in  all  things  ;  and  constantly  enduring  unto  the  end, 
and  being  found  faithful  unto  death,  may  receive  the  crown 
of  immortal  life  from  Him  Who  is  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Life,  and  that  we  together  with  them  may  rejoice  for  ever 
in  Thy  heavenly  Kingdom,  through  the  merits  and  media- 
tion of  Thy  dearly  beloved  Son  Jesus  Christ,  Who  with 
Thee  and  the  Holy  Ghost  liveth  and  reigneth,  One  God, 
world  without  end.  Amen. 


PASTORAL  TO  WESLEYAN  METHODISTS. 


PREFACE  TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION. 

Let  me  thank  the  kind  friends  who  have  given  a  welcome 
to  the  following  Pastoral.  In  some  quarters  it  has  met  with 
a  different  reception.  Let  me  here  advert  to  some  comments 
upon  it. 

And  first; — to  prevent  misconception, — let  me  repeat — 
what  is  freely  allowed  in  the  following  Pastoral — that  we 
ourselves,  the  Clergy  and  Laity  of  the  Church  of  England, 
have  been  much  to  blame ;  and  that  the  unhappy  separation 
between  us  and  the  Wesleyans  is  due,  in  no  small  degree,  to 
our  want  of  faithfulness  and  zeal,  and  to  our  lack  of  definite 
teaching  on  the  doctrines,  constitution,  and  discipline  of  the 
Christian  Church ;  and  that  therefore  we  ought  to  repent 
and  amend  our  ways ;  and  to  pray  earnestly,  and  to  labour 
diligently,  that  the  schism  may  be  healed;  and  to  invite 
them  to  help  us  in  healing  it. 

I  have  been  charged  with  using  strong  language, — for 
instance,  in  saying  that  there  may  be  such  a  sin  in  the 
Christian  Church,  as  the  "gainsaying  of  Core"  (Korah),  as 
St.  Jude  calls  it,  writing  to  Christians  (Jude  11).  If  my 
readers  will  have  the  goodness  to  look  at  the  Pastoral,  they 
will  see  that  I  was  quoting  John  Wesley ;  and  that  they 
who  have  censured  me  have  condemned  him. 

But  it  has  been  asked,  Why  should  a  Bishop  write  a 
Pastoral  to  Wesleyans?  Why  does  he  not  let  them  alone? 
He  had  better  mind  his  own  business.  Why  does  he  trouble 
them  ?  They  are  quiet  and  contented  as  they  are.  He  is 
only  stirring  up  strife,  and  is  exposing  himself  to  the  charge 
of  folly,  pride,  and  presumption,  by  meddling  with  them. 

My  friends  (let  me  reply  to  such  inquiries),  precisely  the 


6\  Atigustine  and  the  Donatists.  369 


same  questions  as  these  were  addressed  more  than  1460 
years  ago  to  one  of  the  wisest  Bishops  of  ancient  Christen- 
dom, St.  Augustine,  when  he  was  endeavouring  to  bring 
back  the  Donatists  of  Africa  to  the  communion  of  the  Church, 
from  which  they  had  then  separated  themselves. 

"  Why  does  Augustine  trouble  us  ?  Why  does  he  not 
let  us  alone  ?  We  are  quite  satisfied  and  happy  as  we  are. 
We  do  not  belong  to  him.  He  had  better  look  to  his  own 
Church,  and  leave  us  to  take  care  of  ours.  He  is  acting  very 
foolishly,  and  is  chargeable  with  usurpation,  and  bigotry,  by 
endeavouring  to  domineer  over  us." 

But  that  wise,  loving,  learned,  and  holy  Bishop  was  not 
moved  by  such  language  as  that.  He  thought  that  the 
Donatists  might  be  led  to  consider  whether  they  were  in 
a  safe  condition ;  and  for  their  sake,  and  the  sake  of  the 
Church,  he  longed  to  heal  the  separation  between  them  and 
her.  He  laboured  to  restore  them  to  her  communion ;  and 
thus  encountered  obloquy  from  them,  and  from  some  luke- 
warm Churchmen,  who  thought  him  a  rash,  and  fanatical 
zealot,  a  hot-headed  controversialist,  and  an  impolitic  enthu- 
siast. But  he  pursued  the  work  of  "  troubling"  (as  it  was 
called),  because  it  was  a  work  of  love.  He  compared  it  to 
the  work  of  a  surgeon,  who,  while  he  gives  pain,  endeavours 
to  restore  health.  "  Not  every  one  (says  Augustine,  Epist. 
93)  who  spares,  is  a  friend ;  nor  every  one  who  wounds,  is 
an  enemy."  "  Open  rebuke,"  says  the  wise  man,  "  is  better 
than  secret  love ;  faithful  are  the  wounds  of  a  friend,  but 
the  kisses  of  an  enemy  are  deceitful"  (Prov.  xxvii.  5,  6). 
"  Melius  est  cum  severitate  diligere  quam  cum  lenitate  deci- 
pere."  "  He  who  binds  a  man  in  a  frenzy,  or  arouses  one 
in  a  lethargy,  is  troublesome  to  both,  but  loves  both ;  and 
he  would  not  trouble  them,  if  he  did  not  love  them."  St. 
Augustine, — when  preaching  a  Sermon  on  that  grand  homily 
of  the  prophet  Ezekiel  (Ezek.  xxxiv.)  to  the  Shepherds  of 
Israel,  which  is  a  Manual  for  all  Christian  Bishops  and 
Pastors,  (see  St.  Augustine,  Sermon  xlvi.),  and  referring 
to  the  case  of  the  Donatists, — thus  speaks :  "  Many  sheep 
stray  from  the  fold  of  Christ,  and  are  impatient  with  those 
who  endeavour  to  bring  them  back  to  it.    '  What'  (they 

vol.  111.  B  b 


3/0 


Miscellanies. 


ask)  do  you  want  with  us  ?  Why  do  you  seek  us  ?  My 
answer  is,  '  because  you  are  going  astray,  and  are  in  danger 
of  perishing.'  '  But'  (they  reply)  I  love  to  stray,  I  am  con- 
tent to  perish, — as  you  call  it.'  '  Do  you  indeed  desire  it  ? 
How  much  better  (I  answer)  do  I  desire  that  you  should  not 
perish,  but  be  saved !  Doubtless  I  am  importunate ;  but 
the  Apostle  commands  me  '  to  preach  the  word,  and  to  be 
instant  iu  season  and  out  of  season'  (2  Tim.  iv.  2)  ;  and 
Almighty  God  condemns  all  careless  pastors  who  do  not  seek 
the  erring ;  He  says,  by  the  voice  of  the  prophet  Ezekiel, 
'  The  diseased  have  ye  not  strengthened,  neither  have  ye 
healed  that  which  was  sick,  neither  have  ye  bound  up  that 
which  was  broken,  neither  have  ye  brought  again  that  which 
was  driven  away,  neither  have  ye  sought  that  which  was  lost ; 
My  sheep  wandered  through  all  the  mountains,  and  upon 
every  high  hill,  yea,  My  flock  was  scattered  upon  the  face  of 
the  earth,  and  none  did  search  or  seek  after  them.  There- 
fore, thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold,  I  am  against  the 
Shepherds,  and  I  will  require  My  flock  at  their  hands' 
(Ezek.  xxxiv.  4 — 10).  Yet,  further  (says  Augustine),  "I 
have  a  commission  from  Christ,  the  Chief  Shepherd ;  We 
must  all  stand  before  His  judgment  seat  (2  Cor.  v.  10). 
Tou  cannot  overturn  the  tribunal  of  Christ,  and  set  up  that 
of  Donatus  in  its  place.  Therefore  I  must  seek  and  search  for 
Christ's  sheep,  when  they  are  astray ;  and  though  in  doing 
so  I  must  go  among  thorns  and  briars  and  brambles, 
which  tear  my  hands,  yet  I  will  gladly  do  it."  And  why  ? 
because  he  loved  Christ,  Who  said,  "  Feed  My  sheep"  (John 
xxi.  16,  17),  and  he  did  it  for  His  sake,  in  order  to  bring 
back  to  His  fold  the  sheep  for  which  He  shed  His  blood ; 
and  for  which  He  prayed  that  they  might  all  be  One  as  He 
and  the  Father  are  One  (John  xvii.  21,  22)  ;  so  that  there 
might  be  one  Fold  and  one  Shepherd  (John  x.  16). 

"  Besides,"  adds  St.  Augustine,  "  if  I  do  not  endeavour 
to  reclaim  dissenters,  but  connive  at  schism,  the  members  of 
the  Church  will  imagine  that  Schism  is  a  harmless  thing, 
and  that  it  matters  little  whether  they  belong  to  the  Church 
or  no.  They  will  suppose  that  it  is  indifferent  whether  they 
resort  to  one  place  of  worship  or  another.    They  will  say, 


S.  Augustine  and  the  Donatists.  371 

that  if  religious  divisions  are  sinful,  and  are  condemned  as 
such  by  Almighty  God  in  Holy  Scripture,  the  Bishops  and 
Pastors  of  the  Church  would  endeavour  to  heal  them.  But 
if  the  Bishops  and  Clergy  do  not  endeavour  to  do  so,  the 
members  of  the  Church  will  infer  that  the  sin  of  schism  is  a 
mere  idle  and  empty  sound,  and  that  only  quarrelsome  people 
ever  talk  about  it ;  and  thus  the  children  of  the  Church  will 
be  lost,  because  Bishops  and  Pastors  do  not  care  whether 
schismatics  are  saved." 

Again,  St.  Augustine  thus  speaks  (on  Psalm  xxi.  and  in 
other  places) — "You  Donatists  say  to  me,  'You  have  your 
sheep,  and  we  have  ours.  Do  not  be  troublesome  to  me  and 
to  my  sheep,  and  I  will  not  be  troublesome  to  you  and  yours.' 
No,  my  dear  friends  (answers  Augustine),  these  sheep  are 
not  yours  nor  mine;  but  they  belong  to  Christ.  Let  His 
sheep  follow  Him.  Wherever  the  Good  Shepherd  is,  there 
let  the  flock  be.  If  Christ  is  with  you,  let  my  sheep,  as  you 
call  them,  go  to  you.  But  no,  you  have  separated  yourselves 
from  the  Church ;  and  Christ  loves  unity,  and  blames  divi- 
sion ;  therefore  let  divisions  be  healed,  and  unity  prevail. 
Come  back  to  the  communion  of  the  Church  from  which  you 
have  strayed.  Nothing,  says  St.  Paul,  profits  without  charity 
(1  Cor.  xiii.  1 — 3),  and  no  one  can  be  rightly  said  to  have 
charity  who  breaks  the  unity  of  the  Church/' 

For  saying  such  things  as  these,  St.  Augustine  was  called 
a  very  troublesome  person  by  some  in  his  own  day,  and  was 
accused  of  stirring  up  strife,  and  was  censured  by  many. 
But  (said  he),  "  The  man  who  willingly  detracts  from  my 
good  name  when  I  labour  for  Christ,  unwillingly  adds  to  my 
future  reward  from  Him."  He  looked  to  posterity  and  to 
the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.  He  looked  to  the  commission 
he  had  received  from  Christ.  "  Nothing,"  he  says  (Epist. 
xxi.),  "  is  more  easy  and  more  popular  than  the  office  of  a 
Bishop  or  a  Priest,  if  it  be  discharged  in  a  careless  and 
adulatory  manner ;  but  nothing  is  more  miserable,  or  more 
worthy  of  condemnation,  in  the  sight  of  God,  than  such  an 
Episcopate  or  Priesthood  as  that."  He  was,  therefore,  con- 
tented to  be  accounted  troublesome,  and  to  be  called  a  man 
of  strife,  as  Jeremiah  was  (Jerem.  xv.  10).    He  remembered 

13  b  2 


372 


Miscellanies. 


that  woe  is  denounced  in  Holy  Scripture  against  those  false 
teachers  who  said,  "  Peace,  Peace,  when  there  was  no  peace" 
(Jerem.  vi.  14),  and  who  "  put  bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for 
bitter,  and  called  evil  good  and  good  evil"  (Isaiah  v.  20), 
and  daubed  a  wall  with  untempered  mortar  (Ezek.  xiii.  10), 
so  that  it  looked  white  and  fair  outside,  while  inside  it  was 
rotten  and  tottering.  He  remembered  also  that  it  was 
said  of  the  greatest  of  prophets,  "  Art  thou  he  that  troubleth 
Israel  ?"  (1  Kings  xviii.  17) ;  and  that  the  pool  of  Bethesda  in 
the  Gospel  would  have  had  no  healing  virtue,  unless  an  angel 
had  descended  and  troubled  the  water  (John  v.  4) ;  and  that 
it  was  said  of  St.  Paul  and  his  companions,  "  These  men  do 
exceedingly  trouble  our  city"  (Acts  xvi.  20),  and  "they  have 
turned  the  world  upside  down"  (Acts  xvii.  6),  and  that  St. 
Paul  was  called  a  madman  (Acts  xxvi.  24;  2  Cor.  v.  13). 
And  more  than  this,  He  Who  is  the  Lord  of  Apostles  and 
Prophets,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  the  Incarnate  Word  and 
Wisdom  of  God,  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  our  Souls,  had 
to  encounter  similar  treatment.  They  said  of  Christ,  "  He 
stirreth  up  the  people"  (Lukexxiii.  5).  "He  is  beside  him- 
self" (Markiii.  21) ;  "  He  is  a  Samai*itan,  and  hath  a  devil" 
(John  viii.  48). 

St.  Augustine  was  content  to  be  found  in  such  company  as 
that ;  and  his  name  is  now  honoured  on  earth,  and  will  be 
blessed  for  ever  in  heaven. 

Besides,  in  addressing  a  Pastoral  to  the  Wesleyans  I 
desired  to  recognize  them  as  not  unwilling  to  be  followers 
of  John  Wesley,  who  (as  I  have  shown  below)  solemnly 
charge  them  "never  to  separate  from  the  Church."  I 
therefore  regarded  them  as  not  aliens  from  it,  and  from 
myself,  a  Pastor  of  the  Church.  Have  I  done  them  wrong 
in  giving  them  credit  of  being  ready  to  be  loyal  to  their 
Founder,  and  to  be  true  to  the  name  they  bear  ? 

It  was  for  such  reasons  as  these,  that  I  put  forth  the 
following  Pastoral.  I  have  there  invited  the  Wesleyans  to 
a  friendly  Conference ;  and  if  a  Conference  with  them,  like 


Appeal  to  the  Wcsleyans — their  Allegations.  373 

the  "  collatio  " 1  of  St.  Augustine  with  the  Donatists,  were 
conducted  in  a  spirit  of  brotherly  love  and  of  prayer  to  God 
for  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  Truth  and  Peace,  we 
might  hope  that  the  temporary  trouble  would  lead  to  per- 
manent quietness  and  unity,  and  to  our  happiness  in  this 
life  and  a  better ;  and  to  the  advancement  of  God's  glory, 
and  the  salvation  of  many  souls. 

It  has  been  alleged  that  the  prevalence  of  Wesleyanism  is 
partly  due  to  the  carelessness,  incapacity,  or  immorality  of 
some  Pastors  of  the  Church.  I  fully  believe  it.  But  one  of 
the  blessings  of  the  Church  of  England  is,  that  true  doctrine 
is  taught,  and  grace  is  dispensed,  in  all  her  congregations, 
by  reason  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  read  in  her  Churches,  and 
by  the  use  of  her  Liturgy,  and  by  the  administration  of  the 
Holy  Sacraments,  and  by  the  love  of  Christ  acting  in  and 
by  His  Word  and  Sacraments,  and  in  answer  to  the  prayers 
of  the  faithful.  In  the  Holy  Scriptures,  Sacraments, 
Liturgy,  Creeds,  Catechism,  and  other  formularies  of  the 
Church  of  England,  every  member  of  all  her  congregations 
possesses  safeguards  of  orthodoxy  and  symbols  of  unity, 
whatever  the  personal  defects  or  dissensions  of  her  Ministers 
may  be ;  and  therefore  the  sheep  may  be  saved  everywhere, 
even  though  some  of  their  shepherds  may  be  lost.  Evil 
Pastors  will  be  punished  hereafter,  if  not  here.  In  the 
mean  time,  their  failings  and  sins  serve  to  try  and  exercise 
the  faith,  charity,  patience,  and  steadfastness  of  the  people, 
which  will  not  fail  of  an  eternal  reward.  It  would  also  be  a 
salutary  thing,  that  unworthy  Pastors  should  be  publicly 
warned  in  a  Conference  that  they  are  stumbling-blocks  and 
offences  to  many,  and  be  brought  to  repentance  and  amend- 
ment, and  thus  the  discipline  of  the  Church  be  strengthened. 
And,  as  Augustine  and  his  brethren  made  overtures  of 
union  to  the  Donatist  Bishops  and  Clergy,  might  not  we,  in 
a  Conference,  invite  our  Wesleyan  brethren  to  help  us  in 
the  work  of  the  ministry,  and  thus  the  breach  between  us 
be  healed,  and  our  efficiency  be  increased  in  winning  souls 
to  Christ  ? 

1  S.  Augustin.  Opera,  torn.  ix.  p.  883,  884,  ed.  Paris  1837. 


374 


Miscellanies. 


It  has  also  been  represented  by  some,  that  the  tendencies 
to  Komanism,  in  doctrine,  practice,  and  ritual,  which  are 
now  visible  in  some  of  our  Churches,  repel  our  Wesleyan 
brethren  from  us,  and  widen  the  separation  between  us. 
This,  also,  is  true.  But,  again,  let  me  ask,  is  it  not  very 
desirable  that  these  evil  results  of  such  tendencies  should 
be  plainly  set  forth  and  brought  to  light,  and  that  Clergy 
who  are  chargeable  with  such  delinquencies  as  these  should 
be  warned  that  they  are  sinning  against  Christ,  and  against 
souls  for  which  He  died  ?  Is  it  not  probable  that  many  of 
them  would  be  debarred  from  such  uncharitable  proceed- 
ings as  these,  by  plain  and  affectionate  words  spoken  in 
public  Conference  with  those  who  are  scandalized  by  them  ? 

It  has  also  been  alleged  by  some,  that  Wesleyans  cannot 
be  said  to  be  chargeable  with  schism,  "  because  schism 
means  division  in  a  Church,  and  not  separation  from  it;" 
and  that  therefore  they  have  nothing  to  regret. 

I  should  have  thought  that  if  a  rent  in  a  Church  were  a 
sin,  a  rent  from  it  was  a  greater  one. 

But  I  had  rather  reply  to  this  allegation  by  words  of 
great  and  good  men,  than  my  own.  The  original  word, 
which  is  used  in  the  New  Testament  by  St.  Jude  [v.  19) 
concerning  those  of  whom  he  speaks  so  severely,  means 
separatists  f  rom  the  Church.  St.  Cyprian  says  (Epist.  65), 
"  Schisma  est,  quum  cle  Ecclesid  receditur,  et  altare  foris 
collocatur,"  and  St.  Jerome  thus  writes  (in  Epist.  Paul,  ad 
Tit.  c.  hi.) — "  Schisma  ab  Ecclesid  separatur." 

It  has  also  been  said  by  some,  that  the  doctrine  of  Apostolic 
Succession  on  which  I  lay  stress  in  the  following  Pastoral 
(pp.  389 — 392),  is  a  fable,  and  Wesley  is  quoted  in  support  of 
that  statement.2    If  so,  it  is  a  fable  which  was  believed  and 

1  Wesley's  Works  (Lond.  1812),  vol.  xv.  p.  245.  But  in  the  same 
sentence  he  adds,  "  This  does  in  no  wise  interfere  with  my  remaining  in 
the  Church  of  England,  from  which  I  have  no  more  desire  to  separate 
than  I  had  fifty  years  ago.  I  still  attend  all  the  ordinances  of  the  Church 
at  all  opportunities,  and  I  constantly  and  earnestly  desire  all  that  are 
connected  with  me  so  to  do."  This  was  written  in  1785,  only  six  years 
before  his  death.  He  said  in  1755  (Works,  xvi.  p.  4),  "  It  is  not  clear  to 
us  that  Presbyters,  so  circumstanced  as  we  are,  may  appoint  or  ordain 


A postolical  Succession .  375 

acted  upon  for  fifteen  centuries  by  the  Church  of  Christ 
Universal — which  is  His  Body  and  Spouse  (Eph.  i.  23),  "the 
Pillar  and  Ground  of  the  Truth/'  "  the  House  of  the  Living 
God/'  (1  Tim.  hi.  15),  to  which  He  promised  His  presence 
even  to  the  end  (Matt,  xxviii.  20),  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  teach  her  all  things,  and  to  guide  her  into  all 
truth  (John  xiv.  26;  xvi.  13),  and  to  abide  with  her  for  ever 
(John  xiv.  6)  ;  and,  therefore,  if  she  was  deceived  in  this, 
Christ's  promise  has  failed;  and  the  Holy  Ghost  has  not 
done  the  work  for  which  He  was  sent.  Surely  no  thought- 
ful and  devout  Christian  will  entertain  such  a  supposition  as 
this ;  but  will  reject  it  with  indignation  and  abhorrence  as 
an  insult  to  our  adorable  Eedeemer,  and  to  God  the  Holy 
Ghost  the  Comforter. 

Let  me  assure  you  that  if  the  Church  of  England  were  to 
be  so  ill-advised  as  to  give  up  her  claim  to  "  Apostolical 
Succession,"  the  person  who  would  most  exult  and  triumph 
at  such  a  surrender  on  our  part,  would  be  the  Bishop  of 
Borne. 

Again,  it  has  been  urged  that  John  Wesley  was  of  opinion 
that  Presbyters  or  Priests  have  equal  power  to  ordain  with 
Bishops.  Be  it  so.  Then  he  was  very  singular  in  that 
opinion.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Aerius  and  Collutbus,  and 
was  condemned  by  the  Church  of  Christ  Universal.  But 
let  me  be  pardoned  for  adding,  that  even  if  this  were  true,  it 
would  not  serve  the  Wesleyan  cause.  The  present  Wesleyan 
Ministers  have  not  even  Presbyterian  ordination.  In  the 
Wesleyan  Conference  of  1792,  it  was  resolved  that  the  title 

others."  In  1738,  when  he  was  asked  at  Bath  by  what  authority  he 
preached,  his  reply  was,  "  By  the  authority  of  Jesus  Christ,  conveyed  to 
me  by  him  who  is  now  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  when  he  laid  his  hands 
upon  me  and  said,  '  Take  thou  authority  to  preach  the  Gospel.'"  (Tyer- 
man's  Life  of  Wesley,  i.  238).  And  in  1745,  he  thus  wrote  in  his  own 
name,  and  in  that  of  his  brother,  the  Rev.  Charles  Wesley,  "  We  believe 
that  it  would  not  be  right  for  us  to  administer  either  Baptism  or  the 
Lord's  Supper  unless  we  had  a  Commission  from  those  Bishops  whom  we 
apprehend  to  be  in  a  succession  from  the  Apostles.  We  believe  that  the 
three-fold  order  of  Ministers  is  not  only  authorized  by  its  apostolic  insti- 
tution, but  also  by  the  Written  Word."  (Tyerman's  Life  of  Wesley,  i. 
496.  This  valuable  biography  is  by  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
Wesleyan  body). 


3/6 


Miscellanies. 


of  "Reverend"  should  not  be  assumed  by  Wesleyan 
Preachers/  and  that  they  "might  not  wear  gowns  or  bands," 

3  Peirce,  Ecclesiastical  Principles  and  Polity  of  the  Wesleyan  Method- 
ists, p.  278,  Lond.  1873.  This  is  an  official  work,  published  by  the 
Wesleyan  Conference.  I  may  here  take  an  opportunity  of  saying  that 
when  I  was  requested  by  a  Wesleyan  Minister  to  overrule  the  decision  of  a 
clergyman  of  this  Diocese  (the  Vicar  of  Owston  Ferry),  I  declined  to  do 
so.  The  title  of  reverend  then  claimed  by  the  Wesleyan  Minister  was 
not  asked  for  as  a  compliment,  or  as  a  matter  of  personal  courtesy  from 
one  private  individual  to  another,  but  was  demanded  as  an  official  rigid. 
It  was  not  merely  the  thing  claimed,  but  the  animus  with  which  it  was 
claimed  that  gave  it  importance.  It  was  claimed  because  it  was  the 
common  title  of  the  Clergy,  and  because  it  was  supposed  to  imply  that  they 
who  have  the  title  are  equally  in  holy  orders  with  the  Clergy.  And  it 
was  demanded  from  the  clergyman  in  question,  not  as  a  private  individual, 
but  as  a  minister  and  representative  of  the  Church,  and  as  acting  in 
his  public  capacity  as  an  authorized  Guardian  of  her  churchyards  and 
churches. 

This  controversy  was  not  of  my  seeking,  but  it  was  forced  upon  me  ; 
and  being  placed  in  these  circumstances  I  resolved  to  endeavour  to  save 
the  Church  from  appearing  to  recognize  publicly,  in  her  own  churchyards 
and  churches,  Wesleyan  Preachers  as  having  the  same  title  with  her 
Clergy  (that  very  title  which  the  Wesleyan  Conference  itself  formerly 
forbad  those  Preachers  to  assume  because  it  is  the  title  of  the  Clergy),  and 
to  acknowledge  them  as  possessing  an  equal  right  with  the  Clergy  of  the 
Church,  to  administer  the  Sacraments ;  and  also  to  save  the  members  of 
the  Church  (over  whose  souls  I  am  appointed  to  watch,  and  for  whom  I 
must  give  an  account  at  the  Great  Day)  from  the  danger  of  confounding 
their  own  duly  ordained  Ministers  with  others  of  the  innumerable  Sects  in 
this  country,  who  have  no  valid  Ordination  ;  and  I  hoped  also  to  lead  the 
ministers  of  Nonconformist  bodies,  especially  of  our  Wesleyan  brethren, 
to  examine  into  their  own  credentials;  so  that  they  might  be  rescued 
from  what  appears  to  me  to  be  a  false  and  perilous  position. 

In  the  present  case,  the  effects  of  speaking  the  truth  in  love  have 
already  in  many  respects  been  greatly  blessed ;  and  I  trust  that  this  will 
be  seen  more  to  be  the  case.  If  the  feelings  of  any  have  been  hurt  by 
what  I  did,  I  am  sorry  for  it ;  but  the  wise  man  saj's,  that  "  faithful  are 
the  wounds  of  a  friend  "  (Prov.  xxvii.  6),  and  "  he  that  rebuketh  a  man, 
shall  afterwards  find  more  favour  than  he  that  flattereth  with  his  tongue  " 
(Prov.  xxviii.  23).  The  Judicial  Committee  of  Privy  Council,  which 
pronounced  Judgment  in  this  case  (which  was  an  undefended  suit)  on 
January  21,  1876,  held  that  the  title  in  question  was  "  not  a  title  of 
honour  or  of  dignity  "  (I  quote  the  official  Eeport),  "  but  a  laudatory  and 
complimentary  epithet,  a  mark  of  respect  and  of  reverence,  as  the  name 
imports,  but  nothing  more."  This  was  not  the  view  taken  by  the  Church 
Courts  below.  The  Privy  Council  did  not  recognize  the  claimant  of  the  title 
as  being  in  holy  orders,  and  it  said,  that  the  ascription  of  that  title  is  not  to 


Wcsleyan  Ordination. 


377 


and  it  was  not  till  1836  (in  the  Conference  at  Birmingham), 
that  the  "  laying  on  of  hands  "  4  was  adopted  by  them. 
And,  therefore  (though  I  shall  be  said,  I  fear,  to  stir  up 
strife),  I  am  bound  to  declare  that  no  well-instructed 
Christian  for  the  first  fifteen  hundred  years  after  Christ 
would  have  thought  it  safe  to  receive  the  Holy  Communion 
at  their  hands. 

Wesleyans  either  respect  John  Wesley,  or  they  do  not. 
If  they  do,  they  must  acknowledge  that  their  own  Ordina- 
tions are  invalid,  and  that  the  Sacraments  ministered  by 
their  Preachers  are  irregular.  For  John  Wesley  never  sup- 
posed that  persons  could  ordain,  who  are  neither  Bishops 
nor  Priests ;  but  their  Preachers  have  not  been  ordained 
either  by  Bishops  or  Priests. 

But  if  they  do  not  respect  John  Wesley,  ought  they  to 
call  themselves  Wesleyans  ?  and  can  they  retain  those 
chapels  which  were  built  by  him  on  the  condition  that  they 
who  held  them  should  conform  to  his  opinions  ?  Might  not 
those  chapels  be  claimed  by  persons,  genuine  Wesleyans, 
who  cleave  to  Wesleyanism  in  that  form  in  which  John 
Wesley  established  it  ? 

As  to  the  ordination  of  Wesleyans,  an  appeal  has  been 
made  in  its  favour  to  Stillingfleet's  Irenicum,  a  juvenile  work, 
which  he  himself  retracted,5  (see  Bp.  Burnet's  Own  Time,  i. 
p.  325,)  and  all  that  can  be  said  of  it  is,  that  it  did  not  condemn 
presbyterian  orders ; — which  the  Wesleyans  have  not.  Let 
me  add,  that  one  of  the  most  saintly  and  wise  men  that 
Scotland  ever  produced,  Robert  Leighton  (afterwards  Arch- 
bishop of  Glasgow),  and  one  of  the  holiest  and  most  learned 

be  regarded  as  a  recognition  of  Ordination.  This  may  be  a  relief  to  some. 
Whether  the  Church  in  her  own  churchyards  and  churches  ought  to  be 
required  to  recognize  with  a  mark  of  respect  and  reverence,  and  with  "  a 
laudatory  and  complimentary  epithet,  a  mark  of  respect  and  reverence," 
the  teachers  of  the  numerous  and  diverse  sects  whom  in  her  Ecclesiastical 
Laws  she  feels  it  her  duty  to  warn  and  to  censure  (see  Canons  of  1603, 
Can.  9, 10,  11),  is  another  question,  which  deserves  consideration. 

4  Ibid.  p.  279. 

5  See  Bp.  Burnet's  Own  Time,  i.  325,  ed.  Oxf.  1823,  and  Stillingfleet's 
own  avowal,  in  his  Unreasonableness  of  Separation,  p.  lxxii,  and  in  his 
Ecclesiastical  Cases,  i.  pp.  5 — 9. 


378 


Miscellanies. 


men  of  Lincolnshire,  Simon  Patrick  (afterwards  Bishop  of 
Ely),  having  already  Presbyterian  orders,  thought  it  right 
to  receive  Episcopal  Ordination.  No  one  need  be  ashamed 
to  imitate  such  examples  as  those. 

Much  might  be  said  in  excuse  of  non-episcopal  communi- 
ties in  countries  where  Episcopacy  does  not  exist,  or  where 
the  Church  enforces  sinful  terms  of  communion,  as  the 
Church  of  Rome  does.  But  this  plea  cannot  be  alleged  in 
England  on  behalf  of  Wesleyanism,  such  as  it  has  now  become, 
since  the  days  of  Wesley,  and  in  spite  of  his  commands. 
It  sets  up  a  priesthood, — for  the  administration  of  the 
Sacraments, — against  the  priesthood  of  the  Church  of 
England.  This  (I  say  it  with  sorrow),  if  done  wilfully,  is 
the  essence  of  schism.  Some  persons  have  recently  urged 
it  to  do  this  the  more,  in  reprisals  to  the  following  Pastoral. 
If  it  does  so,  it  will  prove  more  clearly  that  the  Pastoral  was 
needed. 

But,  brethren,  I  am  fully  aware  that  much  of  the  separa- 
tion, to  which  I  have  referred,  is  the  result  rather  of 
circumstances  of  birth,  education,  and  society,  than  to 
deliberate  convictions.  There  is  not  sufficient  room  in  our 
churches  in  our  great  towns  for  the  population  ;  the  number 
and  endowments  of  our  Clergy  are  inadequate. 

But  here  is  another  reason  for  conference  and  co-operation. 
If  the  Wesleyans  would  unite  with  us  in  an  earnest 
endeavour  to  maintain  the  true  faith,  and  to  contend  earnestly 
for  it  against  unbelief,  superstition,  and  vice,  how  great  and 
glorious  would  be  the  result. 

But  as  it  is  now,  the  Church  of  Rome  points  with  scorn 
to  our  religious  divisions,  and  triumphs  over  what  she  calls 
the  chaotic  confusion  of  our  discordant  Protestantism,  as 
bearing  more  resemblance  to  a  Babel,  the  Tower  of  Confu- 
sion, than  to  Zion,  the  City  of  Peace.  And  thus  she  draws 
many  to  herself.  Not  the  arguments  of  Rome,  which  are 
unsound,  but  the  divisions  of  Protestants,  which  are  sinful, 
make  Romanists. 

And,  on  the  other  side  also,  the  Unbeliever  says  to  us, 
"First  go  and  agree  among  yourselves,  as  to  what  the 
Truth  is,  and  then  come  and  preach  to  us — but  not  till  then." 


Evils  of  religious  divisions. 


379 


Thus,  brethren,  Romanism  and  Infidelity  gain  by  our 
religious  divisions  ;  and  moral  depravity,  insubordination, 
and  anarchy,  and  all  their  calamitous  consequences,  public 
and  private,  are  threatening  to  rend  asunder  the  fabric  of 
civil  society,  and  to  involve  England  in  confusion  and  ruin. 

For  the  sake,  therefore,  of  England  and  of  Christendom,  I 
pray  for  the  friendly  Conference  of  those  who  are  separated, 
and  who  ought  to  be  united  as  brethren  in  Christ. 

It  would  be  premature  to  express  an  opinion  here  as  to 
the  terms  of  agreement  that  might  be  arranged  between 
the  Church  of  England  and  the  Wesleyans.  For  my  own 
part,  however,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  I  would 
consent  to  such  conditions  as  John  Wesley  himself  would 
have  approved  :  and  which  may  be  gathered  from  his  own 
works,  and  from  quotations  in  these  pages. 

What  the  result  of  the  present  appeal  may  be,  God  only 
knows.  It  has  been  said  by  some  that  the  Wesleyan  Society 
is  immovably  rooted  in  its  present  position.  But  I  have 
seen  enough  to  convince  me,  that  whatever  may  be  the  case 
with  the  Society  itself  as  a  whole,  there  are  very  many 
members  of  it,  and  not  a  few  preachers  in  it,  who  are  not 
satisfied  with  their  present  condition,  and  who  are  looking 
earnestly  to  the  Church ;  and  very  many,  in  my  own  know- 
ledge, have  recently  joined  it,  and  many  others  at  this  time 
are  preparing  to  do  so. 

I  have  been  told  that  I  ought  not  to  busy  myself  with  the 
affairs  of  Wesleyans,  but  to  employ  myself  in  attending  to 
the  work  of  my  own  Diocese,  and  to  be  "  putting  my  own 
house  in  order,  which  is  tumbling  about  my  ears." 

Let  me  then  be  permitted  to  say — since  I  am  constrained 
to  speak  of  myself,  as  St.  Paul  was,  by  accusations  of  others, 
so  that  he  becomes,  he  says,  "  a  fool  in  glorying ;  ye  have 
compelled  me"  (2  Cor.  xii.  11) — that,  while  conscious  of 
many  short-comings,  I  have  endeavoured  to  attend  to  the 
affairs  of  this  Diocese,  and  may  I  be  allowed  to  add,  with 
feelings  of  devout  thankfulness  to  God,  from  Whom,  and 
from  Whom  alone,  all  strength  comes  of  body  and  mind, 
that  I  have  been  enabled  by  Him  in  the  present  year  to  hold 
Confirmations  in  numerous  places,  and  to  hold  Visitations  in 


38o 


Misce/lanies. 


almost  every  part  of  the  Diocese,  and  that  (as  I  have  said  in 
the  Pastoral),  I  regard  the  Wesleyans  as  forming  a  very 
considerable  part  of  the  population  of  this  Diocese,  and  that 
in  addressing  them,  I  was  attending  to  the  affairs  of  the 
Diocese  in  a  very  important  respect. 

As  to  the  danger  of  our  house  falling  about  our  ears,  I  am 
fully  aware  that  it  needs  a  good  deal  of  care,  and  may  be 
greatly  strengthened,  improved,  and  beautified ;  and  that 
the  Wesleyans  might  do  much  to  help  us  in  this  good  work. 
But  here,  again,  let  us  thank  God  for  His  mercy.  I  trust 
that  our  house  is  built  on  the  foundation  of  the  Apostles 
and  Prophets,  Jesus  Christ  being  the  head  corner-stone 
(Eph.  ii.  20).  I  believe  it  to  be  built  upon  Christ,  Who  is 
the  rock  (Matt.  xvi.  18) ;  and  while  it  remains  steadfast  on 
that  foundation,  it  will  not  fall  (Matt.  vii.  25). 

As  to  the  work  of  Christ  in  this  Diocese,  let  me  only 
mention  a  single  specimen  of  it.  Nearly  100  Churches  have 
been  either  restored  or  built  in  the  Diocese  in  the  last  three 
years.  This  does  not  look  as  if  the  house  were  tumbling 
about  our  ears.    To  God  be  all  the  praise  ! 


Pastoral  to  the  Wesleyans. 

Tuesday  in  Whitsun  Week,  1873. 

This  holy  season,  Whitsuntide,  in  which  we  bless  God  for 
the  Coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  Peace, 
and  Love,  prompts  me  to  do  so.  I  have  just  completed  a 
Visitation  of  this  Diocese ;  and  I  cannot  overlook  you  who 
form  so  large  and  important  a  part  of  it.  I  pray  God  to 
heal  our  divisions.  My  heart  yearns  for  union  with  you. 
You  often  bring  your  children  to  be  confirmed  by  me.  In 
how  many  things  are  we  united  with  you,  and  you  with  us. 
You  have  the  same  Bible  with  ourselves ;  and  in  many 
respects  the  same  Prayer  Book.  Your  Service  Book  is 
derived  from  our  Liturgy.6    We  have  the  same  Creed.  In 

6  See  "  The  Sunday  Service  of  the  Methodists  and  other  Occasional 
Services."    London  :  Mason,  1842. 


Pastoral  to  the  Wesleyans. 


38i 


how  many  things  are  we  with  you,  and  you  with  us.  And 
why  not  in  all  ? 

Ever  since  the  commencement  of  my  connexion  with  tho 
Diocese  of  Lincoln,  in  which  Wesleyanism  had  its  origin, 
and  in  which  it  largely  prevails,  I  have  longed  to  address 
you,  and  to  speak  to  you  "  the  truth  in  love  "  (Bph.  iv.  15). 
One  of  the  first  Confirmations  which  I  held  in  this  Diocese, 
in  the  Spring  of  1869,  was  at  Epworth,  where  John  Wesley 
was  born  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago.  In  the 
churchyard,  on  the  south  side  of  the  chancel,  is  the  grave- 
stone of  his  venerable  father,  Samuel  Wesley,  thirty-nine 
years  Rector  of  that  Parish,  who,  as  the  epitaph  on  it 
declares,  died,  as  he  had  lived,  "  in  the  true  Catholic  Faith 
of  the  Undivided  and  Ever-Blessed  Trinity,  and  of  the  God- 
head of  Jesus  Christ."  On  that  stone  John  Wesley  stood 
and  preached. 

When  I  visited  Epworth,  in  1869,  1  was  informed  that  no 
Confirmation  had  been  held  in  that  important  Parish  (the 
population  of  which  is  more  than  2000)  since  the  22nd 
August,  1686,  when  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough  of  that 
day  confirmed  there ;  and  it  is  recorded,  that  on  that  occa- 
sion a  multitude  of  persons,  about  a  thousand  in  number, 
was  gathered  together  to  be  confirmed  at  once. 

Is  it  surprising  that  in  such  a  state  of  things  Wesleyanism 
should  have  arisen  ? 

In  the  course  of  several  tours  of  Confirmation  and  Visita- 
tation  from  Parish  to  Parish  in  that  and  succeeding  years,  I 
have  observed  that  in  almost  every  one,  especially  in  North 
Lincolnshire,  Methodism  presents  itself  in  two  forms,  and 
often  in  three,  viz.  Wesleyan  Methodism,  Free  Methodism, 
and  Primitive  Methodism. 

This  suggests  serious  reflections. 

Brethren,  if  your  revered  founder,  John  Wesley,  were  to 
rise  from  his  grave,  what  would  his  feelings  be  ?  what  would 
be  his  language  ?  If  he  stood  once  more  on  his  father's 
grave  at  Epworth,  inscribed  with  that  profession  of  faith  to 
which  I  have  referred ;  and  if  he  looked  down  upon  the 
town  lying  on  the  west  beneath  the  churchyard,  there  he 
would  see  a  large  building  of  red  brick,  in  which  a  religious 


382 


Miscellanies. 


sect  assembles  for  worship,  which  has  split  off  from  the 
Wesleyaris — the  sect  of  Kilhamites.7  And  if  he  extended 
his  contemplation  to  the  neighbouring  country,  he  would 
see  in  almost  every  village  one  or  more  places  of  worship 
frequented  by  persons  who  bear  the  name  of  Methodists, 
but  who  dissent,  not  only  from  the  Church  of  England,  but 
from  the  Methodism  of  John  Wesley. 

Suffer  me  also  to  inquire,  Whether, even  as  to  Wesleyanism 
itself,  as  it  is  now,  he  would  acknowledge  it  as  his  own  work  ? 
Would  John  Wesley  be  a  W esleyan  ?  John  Wesley 
acknowledged  only  one  Church  in  this  country,  the  Church 
of  England.  In  1790  he  thus  wrote:  "I  never  had  any 
design  of  separating  from  the  Church.  I  have  no  such 
design  now.  I  declare  that  I  live  and  die  a  Member  of  the 
Church  of  England ;  and  that  none  who  regard  my  judg- 
ment will  ever  separate  from  it." 3  "  We  do  not,  and  will 
not  form  any  separate  sect ;  but  from  principle  we  will 
remain  what  we  always  have  been,  true  members  of  the 
Church  of  England/'9  He  did  not  allow  his  disciples  to 
call  themselves  "  Dissenters."  1  He  would  not  permit  his 
preachers  to  license  themselves  "  as  dissenters,  but  as 
Methodist  preachers."2  In  the  "Code  of  Directions" 
drawn  up  by  him,  and  given  to  his  preachers,  as  "  the  Rules 
by  which  they  were  to  walk,"  and  which  are  described  by 
the  Wesleyan  Conference  in  1797  as  "the  Rules  to  which 
they  consented  when  they  were  admitted,"  are  the  following 
instructions  : — "  How  should  an  Assistant  be  qualified  for 
his  chai'ge  ? — By  loving  the  Church  of  England,  and  by 
resolving  not  to  separate  from  it.  Let  this  be  well  observed. 
I  fear  that  when  the  Methodists  leave  the  Church,  God  will 

7  In  the  description  of  Epworth,  in  White's  Directory  of  Lincolnshire, 
p.  440,  ed.  1872,  it  is  stated  that  Mr.  Alexander  Kilham,  the  founder  of 
the  "New  Connection,"  was  also  a  native  of  this  parish,  and  died  in  1798, 
after  fighting  hard  against  what  he  regarded  as  the  "  priestly  domination 
of  the  Wesleyan  Conference." 

8  John  Wesley,  in  the  Arminian  Magazine,  quoted  in  p.- 172  of  Mr. 
Urlin's  volume  on  John  Wesley's  Place  in  Church  History.  London, 
1870. 

9  Wesley's  Sermons,  i.  575.  1  Ibid. 
2  Minutes,  a.d.  1772,  vol.  i.  p.  541. 


John  Wesley  to  the  Wesley ans. 


3»3 


leave  them.  0,  use  eveiw  means  to  prevent  this.  (1)  Exhort 
all  our  people  to  keep  close  to  the  Church  and  Sacrament. 
(2)  Warn  them  all  against  niceness  in  hearing — a  prevailing- 
evil.  (3)  Warn  them  against  despising  the  prayers  of  the 
Church ;  (4)  against  calling  our  Society  *  a  Church  j  ' 
(5)  against  calling  our  preachers  '  Ministers ; '  our  houses 
'Meeting  Houses  :'  call  them  plain  'Preaching  Houses.'" 

These  "  Minutes  "  were  delivered  to  Wesleyan  Preachers 
on  their  admission  to  the  office,  and  these  Preachers  were 
then  told  that  they  would  "  be  acknowledged  as  fellow- 
labourers  in  the  cause  as  long  as  they  freely  consented  to 
these  rules,  and  earnestly  endeavoured  to  walk  by  them."  3 

John  Wesley  was  the  founder  of  an  Order  of  Lay 
Preachers.  This  was  his  special  work.  He  desired  to 
supplement  the  Church,  not  to  supplant  it.  He  had  no 
intention  of  setting  up  an  independent  Priesthood  in  oppo- 
sition to  that  of  the  Church,  for  the  ministry  of  the  Sacra- 
ments. He  expressly  disclaimed  any  such  intention.  Hear 
his  words  : 4 — 

"In  1744  all  the  Methodist  Preachers  held  their  first 
Conference.  But  none  of  them  dreamed  that  the  being 
called  to  preach  gave  them  any  right  to  administer  Sacra- 
ments. And  when  that  question  was  proposed,  '  In  what 
light  are  we  to  consider  ourselves  ?  '  It  was  answered,  '  As 
extraordinary  messengers,  raised  up  to  provoke  the  ordinary 
ones  to  jealousy.5  In  order  hereto,  one  of  our  first  rules 
was,  given  to  each  Preacher,  '  You  are  to  do  that  part  of 
the  work  which  we  appoint.'  But  what  work  was  this  ? 
Did  we  ever  appoint  you  to  administer  Sacraments,  to 
exercise  the  Priestly  Office  ?  Such  a  design  never  entered  into 
our  mind  ;  it  was  the  farthest  from  our  thoughts.  And  if  any 
Preacher  had  taken  such  a  step,  we  should  have  looked  upon 
it  as  a  palpable  breach  of  this  rule,  and  consequently  as  a 
recantation  of  our  connexion. 

"  For  supposing  (what  I  utterly  deny)  that  the  receiving 
you  as  a  Preacher,  at  the  same  time  gave  an  authority  to 

3  Chronicles  of  Wesleyan  Methodism,  i.  p.  vii,  pp.  78 — 80,  88. 
*  The  Rev.  John  Wesley :  in  his  Sermon  preached  at  Cork,  4th  May, 
1789,  and  printed  by  him  in  his  Arminian  Magazine  for  1790. 


384 


Miscellanies. 


administer  the  Sacraments ;  yet,  it  gave  you  no  other 
authority  than  to  do  it,  or  anything  else,  where  I  appoint. 
But  where  did  I  appoint  you  to  do  this  ?  Nowhere  at  all. 
Therefore,  by  this  very  rule  you  are  excluded  from  doing  it. 
And  in  doing  it  you  renounce  the  first  principle  of 
Methodism,  which  was  wholly  and  solely  to  preach  the 
gospel. 

"  It  was  several  years  after  our  Society  was  formed,  before 
any  attempt  of  this  kind  was  made.  The  first  was,  I  appre- 
hend, at  Norwich.  One  of  our  Preachers  there,  yielded  to 
the  importunity  of  a  few  of  the  people,  and  baptized  their 
children.  But  as  soon  as  it  was  known,  he  was  informed 
it  must  not  be,  unless  he  designed  to  leave  our  connexion. 
He  promised  to  do  it  no  more  :  and  I  suppose  he  kept  his 
promise. 

"  Now,  so  long  as  the  Methodists  keep  to  this  plan,  they 
cannot  separate  from  the  Church.  And  this  is  our  peculiar 
glory.  It  is  new  upon  the  earth.  Revolve  all  the  histories 
of  the  Church,  from  the  earliest  ages,  and  you  will  find, 
whenever  there  was  a  great  work  of  God  in  any  particular 
city  or  nation,  the  subjects  of  that  work  soon  said  to  their 
neighbours,  '  Stand  by  yourselves,  for  we  are  holier  than 
you ! '  As  soon  as  ever  they  separated  themselves,  either 
they  retired  into  deserts,  or  they  built  religious  houses  ;  or 
at  least  formed  parties,  into  which  none  was  admitted  but 
such  as  subscribed  both  to  their  judgment  and  practice. 
But  with  the  Methodists,  it  is  quite  otherwise.  They  are 
not  a  Sect  or  Party.  They  do  not  separate  from  the 
Religious  Community  to  which  they  at  first  belonged. 
They  are  still  members  of  the  Church ;  such  they  desire  to 
live  and  to  die.  And  I  believe,  one  reason  why  God  is  pleased 
to  continue  my  life  so  long,  is  to  confirm  them  in  their 
present  purpose,  Not  to  separate  from  the  Church. 

"  I  wish  all  of  you  who  are  vulgarly  termed  Methodists, 
would  seriously  consider  what  has  been  said.  And  particu- 
larly you,  whom  God  has  commissioned  to  call  sinners  to 
repentance.  It  does  by  no  means  follow  from  hence  that  ye 
are  commissioned  to  baptize,  or  to  administer  the  Lord's 
Supper.    Ye  never  dreamed  of  this,  for  ten  or  twenty  years 


John  Wesley  to  the  Wcsleyans.  385 


after  ye  began  to  preach.  Ye  did  not  then,  like  Korah, 
Datliau,  and  Abiram,  seek  the  Priesthood  also  (Num.  xvi.  1  0). 
Ye  knew  that  "  No  man  taketh  this  honour  unto  himself,  but 
he  that  is  called  of  God,  as  was  Aaron  '  (Heb.  v.  4)  0  con- 
tain yourselves  within  your  own  bounds.  Be  content  with 
preaching' the  Gospel.  Do  the  work  of  Evangelists.  Proclaim 
to  all  the  world  the  loving-kindness  of  God  our  Saviour ; 
declare  to  all,  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand:  re-pent  ye, 
and  believe  the  Gospel.  I  earnestly  advise  you,  abide  in  your 
place  :  keep  your  own  station.  Ye  were,  fifty  years  ago, 
those  of  you  that  were  then  Methodist  Preachers,  extra- 
ordinary Messengers  of  God,  not  going  in  your  own  will,  but 
thrust  out,  not  to  supersede,  but  to  provoke  to  jealousy  the 
ordinary  messengers.  In  God's  name,  stop  there  !  Both  by 
your  preaching  and  example,  provoke  them  to  love  and  good 
works.  Ye  are  a  new  phenomenon  in  the  earth  ;  a  body  of 
people  who,  being  of  no  sect  or  party,  are  friends  to  all 
parties,  and  endeavour  to  forward  all,  in  Heart  religion,  in 
the  knowledge  and  love  of  God  and  man.  Ye  yourselves 
were  at  first  called  in  the  Church  of  England ;  and  though 
ye  have,  and  will  have,  a  thousand  temptations  to  leave  it, 
and  set  up  for  yourselves,  regard  them  not.  Be  Church  of 
England  men  still.  Do  not  cast  away  the  peculiar  glory 
which  God  hath  put  upon  you,  and  frustrate  the  design  of 
Providence,  the  very  end  for  which  God  raised  you  up." 

Such  are  John  Wesley's  words.  I  beseech  you,  ponder 
them  well. 

After  Wesley's  death,  his  intimate  friend  and  biographer, 
Dr.  Whitehead,  who  was  appointed  to  preach  his  funeral 
sermon,5  was  chosen  also  to  write  his  epitaph,  which  was 
placed  on  a  marble  tablet  in  the  New  Chapel  in  the  City 
Road  ;  and  in  that  epitaph  John  Wesley  was  described  (in 
words  now  erased)  as  "the  founder  of  the  Methodist  Societies" 
(they  are  not  called  churches')  and  as  "the  Patron  and  Friend 
of  Lay  Preachers.'' 16    He  regarded  his  Preachers  as  Laymen. 

s  Wesley  was  born  June  17, 1703,  and  died  March  2,  1791. 

6  The  Epitaph  may  be  seen  in  Wesley's  Works,  vi.  263,  and  in  Peirce, 
p.  5.  The  following  words  were  also  inscribed  on  his  Tomb : — "  This 
great  light  arose  by  the  singular  providence  of  God  to  enlighten  these 

VOL.  HI.  C  C 


3S6 


Miscellanies. 


In  the  year  1703,  two  years  after  Wesley's  death,  the 
Conference  put  forth  certain  Minutes,  in  which  it  is  said 
that  "  the  Wesley  an  teachers  are  only  preachers  and  ex- 
pounders of  God's  Holy  Word,"  and  that  "  the  attempts 
that  have  been  lately  made  to  introduce  the  Ordination 
Scheme,  have  produced  many  and  great  evils  in  various 
places,  and  if  persisted  in  must  divide  the  people,  and  in  the 
end  destroy  the  cause.  AYe,  therefore,  stand  forward  to 
declare  our  intention  of  abiding  by  and  supporting  the 
original  Methodist  plan." 

It  is  much  to  be  desired,  that  another  John  Wesley  might 
arise  to  preach  a  sermon  on  Wesleyanism.  He  would  say 
in  plain  words,  derived  from  Holy  Scripture,  that  wilful 
schism  is  a  deadly  sin,  that  it  is  a  work  of  the  flesh,  and  that 
to  be  carnally  minded  is  death.  He  would  say  that  the 
essence  of  schism  (which  means  division)  is  to  make  a  sepa- 
ration or  rent  in  a  Church,  or  from  a  Church;  that  it  consists 
in  setting  up  altar  against  altar,  and  priesthood  against 
priesthood  ;  and  in  assuming  a  right  to  minister  in  holy 
things,  such  as  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church,  without  a  due 
call  and  mission.  He  would  declare  that  "  no  man  taketh 
this  honour  unto  himself,  but  he  that  is  called  of  God,  as 
was  Aaron  "  (Heb.  v.  4).  He  would  remind  you,  that  Korah 
and  his  company,  (to  whom  John  Wesley  refers  in  the 
sermon  which  I  have  quoted)  who  were  Levites,  and  invaded 
the  Priest's  office,  were  consumed  by  fire  from  God — 
(Num.  xvi.  35),  and  that  St.  Jude,"  warns  Christian  men, 
under  the  Gospel  dispensation,  against  the  commission  of 
this  sin,  lest  they  incur  hereafter  a  punishment  like  that  of 
those  who  "  perished  in  the  gainsaying  of  Korah."  These 
are  awful  words ;  but  they  are  spoken  in  love. 

Would  not  John  Wesley  entreat  you,  as  you  value  your 
everlasting  salvation,  to  consider  carefully,  whether  you  are 
guilty  of  this  sin  ;  or  abet  others  in  committing  it ;  lest  you 
fall  into  the  same  condemnation  ? 

You  may  perhaps  say  in  reply,  that  God  has  visibly 

nations,  and  to  revive,  enforce,  and  defend  the  pure  Apostolic  doctrines 
and  practices  of  the  Primitive  Church."    (Works,  vi.  262,  Peirce,  p.  5). 
<  Jude  11. 


Wesley  an  Arguments  considered.  387 

blessed  the  work  of  those  who  minister  the  Sacraments  in 
your  congregations.  We  do  not  deny  it.  But  are  they, 
therefore,  safe  who  minister  ?  The  Israelites  were  refreshed 
by  the  water  flowing  from  the  rock  struck  by  Moses ;  but 
he  was  excluded  from  Canaan  for  striking  it  (Num.  xx.  12). 
Balaam  and  Caiaphas  prophesied  of  Christ,  and  many  have 
been  edified  by  their  prophecies ;  but  nevertheless  they  who 
prophesied  were  objects  of  God's  wrath.  St.  Paul  rejoiced 
that  Christ  was  preached,  although  some  who  preached  Him 
"preached  in  strife"  (Phil.  i.  15),  but  yet  the  same  Apostle 
says,  "Let  nothing  be  done  through  strife"  (Phil.  ii.  3) ; 
and  St.  James  declares  (James  hi.  14 — 16)  that  "where 
there  is  strife,  there  is  every  evil  work,"  and,  "  if  ye  have 
strife  in  your  hearts,  this  wisdom  is  earthly,  sensual,  devilish." 
St.  Paul  did  not  rejoice  in  their  strife,  but  in  the  Gospel  of 
Truth  and  Unity,  which  they  preached.  And  how  much 
more  would  he  have  rejoiced,  if  they  had  preached  it  in 
unity  !  God  often  elicits  good  from  evil,  and  overrules  evil 
for  good ;  but  evil  is  not  the  less  evil  on  that  account.  God 
brought  about  the  greatest  good,  namely,  the  Salvation  of 
the  World,  from  the  greatest  sin,  the  Crucifixion  of  Christ. 

We  do  not  deny  that  persons  who  resort  to  schismatical 
Teachers  and  Ministers,  and  receive  the  Secraments  at  their 
hands,  but  who  are  not  wilfully  partakers  of  their  schism, 
or  even  conscious  of  it,  may  derive  benefit  from  God's  Word 
and  Sacraments  ministered  by  those  Teachers  and  Minis- 
ters ;  but  this  does  not  in  any  way  diminish  the  guilt  of 
those  who  schismatically  preach  and  minister,  or  who  know- 
ingly and  wilfully  abet  and  encourage  them  in  their  teaching 
and  ministrations. 

It  is  also  said  by  some  persons,  that  they  deem  it  right  to 
go  to  any  place  of  worship  whatsoever,  where  they  may 
"  get  the  most  good and  that  they  go  a  Meeting-house, 
"  because  they  get  more  good  there  than  in  Church."  I  do 
not  doubt  that  they  think  that  they  get  more  good  there 
than  in  a  Church.  But,  my  friends,  we  shall  be  judged 
hereafter,  not  according  to  what  we  think,  but  according  to 
what  God  says.  And  if  God  says  in  His  Word, — as  He 
certainly  does, — that  schism  is  a  deadly  sin  ;  then  we  shall 

c  c  2 


388 


Miscellanies. 


not  be  saved  by  thinking  that  we  are  wiser  than  God,  and 
that  He  was  mistaken  in  saying  so.  No  :  the  Word  that  Hi; 
has  spoken  to  us,  "  that  will  judge  us  in  the  Last  Day  " 
(John  xii.  48).  "There  is  a  way  which,  seemeth  right 
unto  a  man,  but  the  end  thereof  are  the  ways  of  death  " 
(Prov.  xiv.  12). 

But  it  may  be  alleged  by  some,  that,  if  this  reasoning  is 
correct,  then  the  Church  of  England  is  guilty  of  sin  for 
separating  herself  from  the  Church  of  Rome ;  and  it  may  be 
asked,  "  If  the  Church  of  England  is  right  in  separating 
herself  from  the  Church  of  Rome,  are  the  Wesleyans  wrong 
in  separating  themselves  from  the  Church  of  England  ?  " 

Yes,  brethren,  they  are ;  and  let  me  tell  you  the  reason. 

The  Church  of  Rome  not  merely  teaches  many  great  and 
grievous  errors,  at  variance  with  Holy  Scripture,  and  with 
the  doctrines  of  the  ancient  Catholic  Church,  but  she 
endeavours  to  impose  those  errors  upon  all  men ;  and  she 
will  not  hold  communion  with  any  one  who  will  not  com- 
municate with  her  in  those  unscriptural  and  anti-scriptural 
errors.  She  makes  communion  in  her  errors  to  be  essential 
to  communion  with  herself.  She  excommunicates  all  who 
will  not  accept  her  errors ;  and  thus  she  is  guilty  of  the  sin 
of  the  schism  between  the  Church  of  England  and  herself. 
Wilful  schism  is  always  a  deadly  sin.  But  the  guilt  lies 
with  those  who  commit  the  sin,  and  who  cause  the  separation, 
not  with  those  who  suffer  from  its  commission. 

Brethren,  believe  me,  it  will  not  be  enough  for  you  to 
show  that  there  are  evil  men  and  evil  ministers  in  the 
Church  of  England,  and  that  some  in  her  communion  are 
semi-rationalists  or  semi-Romanists ;  it  would  not  ejren  be 
enough  for  you  to  show  that  the  Church  of  England  con- 
nives at  errors  in  doctrine,  discipline,  and  worship.  Even 
if  all  these  things  could  be  proved,  they  would  not  justify 
you  in  sepai'ating  from  her,  and  in  making  divisions  in  her. 
No  Church  on  earth  is  free  from  manifold  imperfections. 
Tares  grow  up  among  the  wheat,  till  the  harvest.  There 
are  bad  fish  together  with  good  fish  in  the  net ;  goats  with 
sheep  in  the  flock ;  chaff  with  good  grain  on  the  threshing- 
floor;  unfruitful  branches  with  fruitful  on  the  Vine,  in  every 


On  Separation  from  the  Church  of  England.    3  89 


visible  Church  on  earth.  And  so  it  will  be  till  the  end  of 
the  world ;  and  then  a  severance  will  be  made.  But  prove 
to  us,  if  you  can,  that  the  Church  of  England  has  not  the 
Holy  Scriptures  in  her  hands  ;  prove  to  us  that  she  has  not 
the  Creeds  of  the  ancient  Catholic  Church ;  prove  to  us  that 
she  does  not  minister  the  Holy  Sacraments  by  that  form  of 
Church  Government  which,  and  which  alone,  for  fifteen 
hundred  years  was  known  and  accepted  by  the  Universal 
Church  of  Christ,  to  which  He  promised  His  continual  pre- 
sence and  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  "  teach  her 
all  things,"  and  to  "  guide  her  into  all  truth  "  (John  xiv. 
16,  26 ;  xvi.  13)  ;  namely,  by  the  three  Orders  of  Bishops, 
Priests,  and  Deacons  ;  prove  to  us  that  she  imposes  and 
enforces  heretical  doctrines,  contrary  to  Holy  Scripture  and 
to  the  teaching  of  the  primitive  Church,  and  then  you  will 
have  said  something  to  palliate  what  you  must  allow  me  to 
call  the  sin  of  separation  from  her — but  net  till  then. 
Where,  then,  is  the  remedy  ? 

First,  in  prayer  to  God  for  the  outpouring  of  His  Holy 
Spirit  upon  us,  that  He  will  "  give  us  grace  seriously  to  lay 
to  heart  the  great  dangers  we  are  in  by  our  unhappy  divi- 
sions; and  that  He  will  take  away  all  hatred  and  prejudice, 
and  whatsoever  else  may  hinder  us  from  godly  union  and 
concord ;  that,  as  there  is  but  one  Body,  and  one  Spirit,  and 
one  Hope  of  our  Calling,  one  Lord,  one  Faith,  one  Baptism, 
one  God  and  Father  of  us  all,  so  we  may  henceforth  be  all 
of  one  heart  and  of  one  soul,  united  in  one  holy  bond  of 
Truth  and  Peace,  of  Faith  and  Charity,  and  may  with  one 
mind  and  one  mouth  glorify  God ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord."  8 

Next,  let  the  Bishops,  Clergy,  and  Laity  of  the  Church 
humble  themselves  before  God,  and  confess  their  sins,  and 
pray  for  pardon  and  grace  from  Him.  If  the  Bishops  and 
Clergy  of  England — especially  in  her  Provincial  and  Dio- 
cesan Synods — had  taken  counsel  together  how  to  guide  the 
great  religious  movement  set  on  foot  by  John  Wesley,  it 
might,  by  God's  providence,  have  been  controlled  and  regu- 
lated, and  have  done  much  to  quicken  the  spiritual  life  of 

8  Prayer  for  Unity ;  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


39Q 


Miscellanies. 


the  Church,  and  to  increase  her  pastoral  and  ministerial 
efficiency,  and  have  conduced  to  the  advancement  of  His 
glory  and  the  diffusion  of  His  truth,  and  to  the  salvation  of 
souls ;  and  the  evil  effects  which  have  proceeded  from  it 
might  have  been  averted. 

But  the  opportunity  was  lost ;  and  now  we  mourn  over 
the  loss. 

The  Laity  also  of  the  Church  of  England  have  their  share 
of  responsibility.  As  we  have  said,  Wesleyanism  was  due 
in  great  measure  to  Pluralities  and  Non-residence  of  the 
Clergy ;  and  pluralities  and  non-residence  were  due  to  the 
poverty  of  our  parochial  Cures,  and  to  the  want  of  Parson- 
ages. Even  at  the  present  time  the  clerical  income  of  one- 
ninth  of  the  benefices  in  Lincolnshire  is  not  more  than  100L 
a  year;  and  the  income  of  one-third  is  not  more  than  2007. 
a  year.  And  more  than  30,0007.  a  year  of  the  Tithes  of  this 
Diocese  are  in  the  hands  of  laymen. 

Let  the  Laity  of  the  Church  be  entreated  to  remember 
that  all  property  is  held  in  trust  from  God  and  for  God  ;  and 
that  He  has  said  in  His  Holy  Word  that  it  is  held  in  trust 
for  certain  purposes,  one  cf  the  first  of  which  is  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Christian  Ministry  (Gal.  vi.  6.  1  Cor.  ix.  13, 
14)  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  Can  Lay  impropriators  of 
tithes  be  at  ease  in  their  consciences,  can  large  Proprietors 
and  Capitalists  look  forward  with  any  comfort  to  the  Great 
Day  of  reckoning  (when  they  will  be  called  upon  by  the  Judge 
of  all  to  give  an  account  of  their  stewardship),  if,  while 
they  themselves  are  living  in  affluence,  many  of  the  Clergy 
in  Parishes  where  they  themselves  reside,  or  where  they 
have  property, — perhaps  tithe  property, — are  left  to  pine  in 
poverty ;  and  if  all  the  evils,  spiritual  and  temporal,  are 
allowed  to  remain  unabated,  which  prevail  in  our  Parishes 
from  the  indigence  of  their  Ministers  ?  "  Every  Man," 
(says  Lord  Bacon)  "  owes  to  God  a  tenth  of  His  substance." 
Let  the  Laity,  for  Christ's  sake,  remember  these  things. 
Let  them  do  their  duty  in  this  respect,  and  they  will  reap 
an  abundant  harvest,  even  in  this  world ;  and  how  blessed 
will  be  their  recompense  in  the  life  which  is  to  come  ! 

Next,  let  me  be  permitted  to  exhort  and  entreat  those, 


Apostolic  Succession. 


39i 


who  are  Wesleyan  Methodists,  to  consider  their  own  posi- 
tion, as  in  the  sight  of  God,  Who  searcheth  the  hearts,  and 
Who  has  revealed  His  Will  in  His  Word,  and  Who  will 
judge  us  all.  Listen  not  to  me,  but  to  God,  Who  declares 
that  wilful  schism  is  a  sin — a  deadly  sin ;  and  that  Unity  is 
a  great  good,  which  all  Christians  must  desire  to  attain  and 
hold  fast.  Consider  with  yourselves,  whether  Christ  did  not 
promise  to  be  always  with  His  Church  even  to  the  end  of  the 
world  (Matt,  xxviii.  20),  and  to  send  to  her  the  Holy  Ghost, 
the  Comforter,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  to  teach  her  all  things, 
and  to  guide  her  into  all  truth,  and  to  abide  with  her  for 
ever  (John  xiv.  16,  26;  xvi.  13).  And  then  ask  yourselves 
this  question — Can  these  promises  of  Christ  have  been  ful- 
filled (as  assuredly  they  must  have  been,  for  He  is  the  Truth), 
if  the  Church  of  Christ  did  not  know  for  fifteen  centuries 
what  ought  to  be  her  own  form  of  government  in  the  ministry 
of  the  Word  and  Sacraments,  and  if  it  was  left  for  men  in 
the  eighteenth  century  after  Christ  to  discover  it  ?  Can 
we  imagine  that  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God, 
have  failed  in  their  Word  and  Work  ?  This  is  impossible. 
Such  a  supposition  must  be  repudiated  with  indignation  by 
all  faithful  Christians,  as  an  insult  to  the  Son  of  God,  and 
as  an  outrage  against  the  Spirit  of  God.  Well,  then,  Can 
you  yourselves  be  safe,  either  in  ministering  the  Sacraments 
without  a  due  mission  and  ordination  to  minister  them  (in 
opposition  to  the  uniform  judgment  and  practice  of  the 
Universal  Church  of  Christ  for  fifteen  centuries),  or  in 
abetting  and  encouraging  any  who  minister  them  without 
such  mission  and  ordination,  and  in  receiving  the  Sacra- 
ments at  their  hands  ?  I  think  not.  And  as  one  who 
desires  your  everlasting  salvation,  I  earnestly  exhort  and 
implore  you  to  examine  these  things  well,  as  in  the  presence 
of  God ;  and,  whatever  sacrifice  it  may  cost  you,  to  act 
accordingly.  Inquire  whether  it  be  not  true,  that  the  Uni- 
versal Church  for  fifteen  hundred  years  after  Christ  believed 
that  none  but  Bishops  could  confer  Holy  Orders.  Inquire 
whether  the  Church  did  not  condemn  the  contrary  opinion 
when  broached  by  Aerius.9  Ask  whether  it  be  not  true, 
9  S.  Augustin.  de  Hares.  §  63.    Epiphanius,  do  Hun-ut,  75. 


392 


Miscellanies. 


that  what  is  called  the  "  Apostolical  Succession  of  Ministers" 
lias  been  actually  continued  from  the  Apostolic  age  ?  and 
whether  this  may  not  be  reasonably  inferred  from  the  fact 
that  the  Church  knew  that  it  was  necessary  for  her  to 
provide  for  herself  persons  to  minister  the  Word  and 
Sacraments ;  and  that  she  did  not  ~know  of  any  other  way  of 
providing  them  than  by  Episcopal  Ordination  ?     In  our 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which  declares  the  Law  of  the 
Church  of  England,  for  which  John  Wesley  ever  expressed 
the  greatest  reverence,  are  the  following  words   — "  It  is 
evident  unto  all  men  diligently  reading  the  Holy  Scripture 
and  ancient  Authors,  that  from  the  Apostles'  time  there  have 
been  these  Orders  of  Ministers  in  Christ's  Church — Bishops, 
Priests,  and  Deacons ;  which  Offices  were  evermore  had  in 
such  reverent  estimation,  that  no  man  might  presume  to 
execute  any  of  them,  except  he  were  first  called,  tried,  exa- 
mined, and  known  to  have  such  qualities  as  are  requisite 
for  the  same ;  and  also  by  Publick  Prayer,  with  Imposition 
of  Hands,  were  approved  and  admitted  thereunto  by  lawful 
Authority.    And,  therefore,  to  the  intent  that  these  Orders 
may  be  continued,  and  reverently  used  and  esteemed,  in  the 
United  Church  of  England  and  Ireland,  no  man  shall  be 
accounted  or  taken  to  be  a  lawful  Bishop,  Priest,  or  Deacon, 
in  the  United  Church  of  England  and  Ireland,  or  suffered  to 
execute  any  of  the  said  functions,  except  he  be  called,  tried, 
examined,  and  admitted  thereunto,  according  to  the  Form 
hereafter  following,  or  hath  had  formerly  Episcopal  Conse- 
cration, or  Ordination."    Also  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity 
(Sect.  14)  a  person  who  is  only  a  Deacon  (i.e.  who  has  not 
been  ordained  Priest  by  a  Bishop  and  other  Priests)  is  liable 
to  a  heavy  penalty  if  he  presumes  to  consecrate  and  adminis- 
ter the  Holy  Communion. 

And  further,  may  I  not  venture  to  inquire,  whether  even 
in  secular  respects  the  present  position  of  Methodism  is 
secure  ?  If  I  rightly  apprehend  the  matter,  the  tenure  of 
its  places  of  worship  depends  on  the  fulfilment  of  certain 
prescribed  terms  and  stipulations.  The  Holy  Scriptures,  as 
explained  in  the  Sermons  of  John  Wesley  and  in  his  Notes  on  the 
1  Book  of  Common  Prayer — Preface  to  the  Ordination  Service. 


"  Wcsleyan  Chapels!'    Proposals  for  Union.  393 


New  Testament,  are  its  standards  of  doctrine  and  discipline,  and 
its  places  of  worship  are  held  on  the  condition  of  conformity  to 
those  standards.2  To  quote  the  Minutes  of  Conference  itself 
(vol.  i.  p.  417),  "  The  chapels  were  to  be  held  in  trust  for 
the  sole  use  of  such  persons  as  might  be  appointed  at  the 
yearly  Conference  of  the  people  called  Methodists,  provided 
that  the  said  persons  preached  no  other  doctrines  than  those 
contained  in  Wesley's  Notes  on  the  New  Testament,  and  in  his 
four  volumes  of  Sermon?."  I  have  quoted  extracts  from  his 
Sermons,  and  from  other  of  his  works.  Might  it  not  even 
be  alleged,  that  the  Wesleyans  incur  the  danger  of  losing 
their  own  places  of  worship,  if  they  drift  away  from  what 
their  Founder  has  repeatedly  affirmed  in  the  clearest  and 
most  solemn  tones  in  those  very  works  which  are  the  code 
and  charter  of  your  Society. 

But  in  saying  this,  let  me  add  in  Christian  Truth  and 
Love,  that  we  ourselves  in  the  Church  of  England  have  need 
of  you,  and  that  you  have  need  of  us.  "  Sirs,  ye  are  brethren, 
why  do  ye  wrong  one  to  another?"  (Acts  vii.  26).  We 
love  you  for  your  zeal :  and  there  is  much  in  your  organiza- 
tion that  we  admire.  You  and  we  have  common  enemies, 
who  desire  our  destruction ;  Satan  and  Sin,  the  World  and 
the  flesh.  We  have  formidable  foes  leagued  against  us  ; 
Secularism,  Unbelief,  and  Romanism.  Why  do  we  not  unite 
in  doing  battle  against  them,  and  in  contending  earnestly 
for  the  faith  ?  Our  separation  has  lasted  too  long  already, 
and  if  it  continues,  it  will  widen  itself  still  more.  How  many 
discordant  forms  of  Methodism  already  exist  !  But  if  our 
separation  could  be  healed,  how  much  would  the  holy  angels 
rejoice,  and  what  blessings  would  accrue  to  us  and  to  count- 
less myriads  of  souls  in  time  and  eternity,  from  our  union  ! 

1  may  be  mistaken,  but  this  union,  of  which  I  speak,  is 
not  impracticable ;  and  if  we  would  resolve  not  to  contend 
for  our  own  private  opinions,  but  for  the  Truth  as  revealed  in 
God's  Word,  and  as  declared  by  the  consent  and  practice  of 
the  ancient  Church  of  Christ,  and  would  conform  to  that 
standard,  the  solution  of  the  problem  would  be  easy. 

2  See  John  Wesley's  Journal,  Sept.  5,  1783;  Pcirce,  p.  2(3.3,  2G'J  ; 
Ty email's  Life  of  "Wesley,  iii.  417. 


394 


Miscellanies. 


Let  me  be  allowed  to  invite  you  to  a  friendly  Conference 
on  these  matters ;  and  in  doing  so,  let  me  advert  to  some 
details. 

You  have  your  "  Lay  Preachers."  We  in  the  Church  of 
England  have  our  "Lay  Readers."  Might  not  these  two 
orders  be  united  ?  Your  Founder,  John  Wesley,  declared 
with  his  dying  breath  that  he  did  not  dissent  in  anything 
from  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  Church  of  England; 
he  died  in  the  Communion  of  the  Church;  and  he  solemnly 
conjured  his  followers  never  to  separate  from  it.  In  the 
present  address  to  Wesleyans  I  am  only  echoing  the  words 
of  John  Wesley,  and  of  his  wise  and  saintly  brother,  the 
Rev.  Charles  Wesley,  who,  "hoped  and  prayed  that 
Methodism  would  merge  in  the  Church,  and  that  a  Bishop 
would  be  found  to  confer  ordination  on  its  preachers."  3  He 
being  dead  yet  speaketh  (Heb.  xi.  4) .  Will  you  not  listen  to 
his  voice  ? 

I  do  not  indeed  forget,  that,  in  the  year  1784 — and  not 
till  then — when  Wesley  was  more  than  eighty  years  of  age, 
and  when  he  had  attempted  in  vain  to  obtain  ordination  for 
some  of  his  preachers  from  the  English  Episcopate,  he  took 
upon  himself  to  appoint  two  of  them  to  America ;  and  (in 
opposition  to  the  earnest  remonstrance  of  his  brother 
Charles  Wesley)  he  gave  a  commission  to  Dr.  Coke  (who 
was  also  a  Presbyter  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  who 
afterwards  desired  to  be  consecrated4  a  Bishop  by  American 
Bishops,  and  to  be  consecrated  to  the  See  of  Calcutta),  to 
"  superintend  "  the  Wesleyan  Society  in  that  country.5 

John  Wesley  represented  these  acts  as  exceptional  acts, 
and  as  necessitated  by  circumstances;  but  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  they  were  infractions  of  Church  discipline  ;  and 

3  See  Jackson's  Memoirs  of  the  Eev.  C.  Wesley,  pp.  266,  306,  426,  473, 
cited  by  Urlin,  p.  110. 
*  Tyerman,  iii.  434. 

5  Both  Wesley  and  Coke  were  Presbyters  of  the  Cliurch  of  England ; 
and  Dr.  Whitehead,  Wesley's  biographer,  said  truly,  "  Dr.  Coke  had  the 
same  authority  to  ordain  Mr.  Wesley  that  Mr.  Weslej'  had  to  ordain  Dr. 
Coke."  Wesley  (says  Mr.  Tyerman,  iii.  430),  we  think,  never  intended 
doing  this,  but  at  Dr.  Coke's  request  he  acquiesced.  Wesley  never  gave 
him  the  title  of  Bishop.    (Tyerman,  iii.  437.) 


Charles  Wesley.     Wesley  s  Ordinations.  395 


that  ho  thus  involved  himself  in  embarrassment,  and  placed 
himself  in  an  attitude  of  inconsistency  and  self-contradiction, 
and  exposed  himself  to  the  charge  of  doing  that  very  thing 
which  he  most  deprecated  and  condemned,  namely,  of 
separating  himself  from  the  Church.  He  set  aside  the 
judicious  counsels  of  his  pious  brother,6  Charles  Wesley. 
He  took  a  false  step ;  and  he  was  next  led  on  to  "  yield  to 
the  judgment  of  others"  (as  he  himself  expressed  it),  and 
to  appoint  three  preachers  to  minister  the  Sacraments  in 
Scotland. ,  It  has  been  affirmed  by  some  writers,  that  he 
was  carried  on  still  further,  and  was  prevailed  upon  to 
appoint  three  of  his  preachers  to  minister  also  in  England. 
But  this  is  doubtful.  In  fact,  after  Wesley's  death,  the 
Trustees  of  the  principal  Wesleyan  places  of  worship  in 
London  and  Bristol,  made  the  following  statement  to  the 
Wesleyan  Conference  in  1793  : 7 — "Although  Mr.  Wesley, 
by  dint  of  importunity ,  towards  the  close  of  his  life  was 
prevailed  upon  to  ordain  a  few  of  his  preachers  for  America 
and  Scotland,  he  by  no  means  intended  to  extend  it  or  make 
it  general." 

This  declaration  is  corroborated  by  Dr.  Whitehead, 
Wesley's  biographer,  who  says  that  Wesley  was  prevailed 
on  to  ordain,  against  his  own  judgment ;  and  who  contra- 
venes the  assertion  that  Wesley  intended  any  of  his 
ordinations  for  Englaud.8  Even,  therefore,  if  it  could  be 
conceded  that  Presbyters  are  qualified  to  ordain  (a  theory 
repugnant  to  the  judgment  of  the  Universal  Church  for 
1500  years),  and  even  though  Wesley,  who  was  a  Presbyter 
of  the  Church,  may  be  appealed  to,  in  a  certain  limited 
sense,  for  such  an  opinion  as  that ;  yet  suffer  me  to  say,  it 
would  by  no  means  follow  that  Wesleyan  Ministers  have 
been  duly  ordained  (for  they  do  not  possess  presbyterian 
orders),  or  that  they  can  rightly  minister  the  Sacraments  to 
you,  or  that  you  can  safely  receive  the  Sacraments  at  their 
hands;  or  that  they  and  you  can  justly  appeal  to  John 
Wesley  for  any  sanction  or  countenance  in  doing  so. 

But,  brethren,  what  are  men,  that  we  should  refer  to  them  ? 

6  See  Tyerman,  iii.  439—417.  ;  See  Urlin,  p.  162. 

s  Ibid.  161, 


396 


Miscellanies. 


let  me  not  speak  to  you  of  John  Wesley,  but  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Let  me  affectionately  entreat  you,  to  remember  the  words 
of  our  Blessed  Lord  and  Saviour,  Who  has  purchased  to 
Himself  His  Universal  Church  by  His  own  Blood,  and  Who 
will  judge  us  all  at  the  Great  Day,  and  Who  thus  prayed  for 
His  disciples  :  "  As  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me,  and  I  in  Thee, 
that  they  also  may  be  one  in  Us ;  that  they  may  be  One, 
even  as  We  are  One  "  (John  xvii.  21,  22). 

I  am,  beloved  brethren  in  Christ, 

Yours  faithfully, 

C.  LINCOLN. 


ON  THE  BURIALS  QUESTION. 

Let  me  be  allowed  to  place  here  on  record  what  was  said 
by  me  on  this  subject  at  the  Lincoln  Diocesan  Conference, 
Friday,  October  5,  1877. 

I  trust  that  we  are  all  ready  to  give  respectful  attention 
to  the  feelings  of  our  dissenting  brethren,  and  that  we  are 
desirous  of  removing  any  real  grievance  from  them  that  we 
can.  But  I  doubt  whether  by  assenting  to  Mr.  Osborne 
Morgan's  Burials'  Bill  we  should  confer  any  real  boon  upon 
them.  We  find  from  statistical  inquiries  that  our  dissenting 
brethi'en  generally  prefer  burial  by  the  Clergy  of  the  Church, 
with  the  Church  Service,  to  any  other  form  of  interment. 
For  example,  in  one  Cemetery  near  Lincoln,  in  a  district 
where  are  many  dissenters,  there  have  been  406  burials  on 
the  consecrated  side,  and  only  two  on  the  unconsecrated 
side.  But  if  that  Bill  were  to  pass,  the  religious  dissenters 
would  be  pressed  by  political  partisans, — eager  to  seize  on 
our  churches  by  means  of  our  Churchyards, — to  reject  the 
ministrations  of  the  Church  in  our  Churchyards  for  burial 
by  other  Ministers. 

I  believe  also  that  religious  dissenters  would  think  that 
the  admission  of  their  own  Ministers  into  English  Church- 
yards  would  be  too  dearly  purchased,  if  it  were  to  open  the 
way,  as  it  certainly  would,  to  the  desecration  of  those 
Churchyards  by  irreligious  services. 


On  the  Burials  Bill. 


397 


We  find  also  that  Mr.  Osborne  Morgan's  Bill,  which 
would  legalize  the  unrestricted  admission  of  all  Services, 
even  of  secularists  and  unbelievers,  in  our  Churchyards, 
was  supported  in  Parliament  by  a  large  number  of  Irish 
Romanists  and  Scotch  Presbyterians ;  and  that  the  future 
condition  of  our  English  Churchyards  may  be  decided  by 
their  votes,  although  they  have  no  concern  with  our  Church- 
yards except  so  far  as  it  is  connected  with  the  general 
question  of  the  Disestablishment  of  the  Church,  for  which 
they  are  strenuous  advocates.  In  fact,  to  speak  plainly,  the 
existence  of  the  Church  Establishment  is  the  real  grievance 
with  a  large  number  of  Mr.  Morgan's  adherents.  A  for- 
midable confederacy  is  now  arrayed  against  the  Established 
Church.  I  do  not  say  that  they  are  all  eager  to  disestablish 
it,  but  I  fear  that  most  of  them  desire  to  weaken  it.  The 
one  thing  which  unites  their  discordant  elements  is  an  attack 
on  the  Church.  The  noble  lord  who  leads  the  opposition  in 
the  House  of  Lords  is  well  aware  of  this,  and  he  and  his 
allies  are  strongly  tempted  to  make  use  of  this  question  as 
the  rallying-point  for  combining  the  scattered  forces  of  the 
liberal  party,  and  for  bringing  it  back  again  to  political 
power. 

The  question,  gentlemen,  is  not,  what  men,  however 
distinguished,  may  propose,  but  what  does  God  command. 
It  seems  to  me  that  in  the  discussions  on  this  question  the 
Person  most  concerned  in  it  has  been  almost  left  out  of  the 
account.  And  who  is  he  ?  Almighty  God.  The  Church  is 
God's  house.  The  Churchyard  is  "God's  acre."  It  has 
been  set  apart  from  all  common  uses,  and  has  been  religiously 
dedicated  to  God  by  a  solemn  act  of  consecration.  It  cannot 
be  interfered  with,  and  be  applied  to  uses  which  He  dis- 
approves, without  sin.  And  He  is  a  God  of  Truth  and  a 
God  of  Unity.  He  is  also  a  jealous  God.  Famine,  Flood, 
Pestilence,  and  War  are  God's  judgments,  by  which  He 
punishes  those  Nations  which  sin  against  Him.  Let  us  not 
provoke  Him  to  chastise  us  with  those  fearful  visitations,  by 
profaning  what  is  holy.  Our  Blessed  Lord,  who  has  "  all 
power  in  heaven  and  in  earth,"  twice  drove  from  His  presence 
in  anger  those  who  profaned  the   outer  courts  of  His 


39§ 


Miscellanies. 


Father's  House.  Can  we  hope  for  His  blessing,  if  we 
desecrate  the  Churchyards  which  have  been  dedicated  to 
God  ?  Churchyards  are  holy  places,  and  if  a  nation  pro- 
fanes them,  it  must  expect  severe  retribution  from  Him. 

Gentlemen,  it  may  perhaps  be  said,  that  Mr.  Osborne 
Morgan's  Bill,  which  would  give  up  our  Churchyards  to 
secularists  and  infidels,  will  not  be  carried  in  its  largest 
form,  and  that  Lord  Harrowby's  Clause,  which  limits  them 
to  services  which  are  "  Christian  and  orderly,"  will  be 
accepted  in  its  place.  I  can  hardly  see  how  this  can  be, 
because,  the  plea,  on  which  that  Clause  rests,  is  that 
Churchyards  do  not  belong  to  the  Church  of  England,  but 
are  national  property ;  and  if  so,  then  secularists  and  infidels 
have  an  equal  claim  for  admission  to  them  with  all  other 
citizens.  And  who  is  to  prosecute,  if  those  so-called 
"  orderly  and  Christian "  services  become  unchristian  and 
disorderly  ?  Is  the  Clergyman  to  incur  the  obloquy  and 
expense  of  doing  so  ?  But  let  that  Clause  be  accepted. 
Then  what  would  be  the  consequence  ?  There  are  more 
than  fifty  forms  of  Dissent  in  this  country;  all  calling  them- 
selves "  Christian."  First  and  foremost  are  the  Roman 
Catholics.  It  is  said,  that  Romanism  is  rapidly  increasing 
in  this  country.  I  believe  that  this  is  so,  and  that  it  will 
increase  more — both  in  numbers  and  aggressive  activity. 
Well,  then,  by  this  Clause  the  Churchyards  of  the  Church 
of  England  will  be  opened  to  the  pompous  ceremonies  and 
religious  dogmas  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

It  astonishes  me,  I  confess,  to  find  that  many  distinguished 
persons  who  have  lately  protested  vehemently  against  Ritua- 
listic practices  and  Romanizing  tendencies  in  the  Church, 
should  now  invite  the  Church  of  Rome  (which  will  joyfully 
accept  the  invitation)  to  come  and  officiate  in  the  Church- 
yards of  the  Church  of  England ;  and  should  thus  be  doing 
what  in  them  lies  to  destroy  the  work  of  the  English  Refor- 
mation. What  would  Archbishops  of  Canterbury — such  as 
Archbishop  Cranmer,  and  Archbishop  Parker,  and  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift,  and  Archbishop  Laud — have  said  to  such 
a  proposal  as  this ;  to  throw  open  our  English  Churchyards 
to  the  Priesthood  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ?   As  to  the  other 


The  Burials  Bill. 


399 


forms  of  religious  dissent,  all  calling  themselves  Christian, 
and  all  therefore  to  be  received  as  welcome  guests  in  our 
English  Churchyards,  their  name  is  Legion.  This  I  know, 
that  the  resolution  in  question  would  include  those  who 
disbelieve  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection  of  the  dead,  and 
who  repudiate  the  truth  of  the  Atonement,  and  deny  the 
Divinity  of  Christ. 

Gentlemen,  I  venture  to  prophesy,  that  if  this  resolution 
should  pass,  some  who  have  been  its  leading  advocates,  will 
be  among  the  first  to  rue  the  result. 

And  now  it  may  be  asked,  What  is  to  be  done  ?  We  are 
ready  to  assent  to  the  closing  of  many  Churchyards,  and  to 
the  provision  of  accessible  public  Cemeteries  in  every 
parochial  district.  But  I  frankly  confess  that  I  have  no 
compromise  to  offer.  I  see  none  that  is  possible.  Some 
people  say  you  must  open  your  Churchyards  to  all. 
You  must  "  accept  the  inevitable."  Gentlemen,  what  would 
the  martyrs  of  old — what  would  our  Protestant  forefathers 
have  said  to  such  cowardly  counsel  as  that  ?  "  Accept  the 
inevitable  !  "  They  might  have  escaped  the  rack,  and  the 
faggot,  and  the  stake,  if  they  had  "  accepted  the  inevitable." 
But  where  then  would  have  been  their  fair  name  on  earth, 
and  their  glorious  reward  for  Eternity  ? 

No,  gentlemen,  no  man  can  force  the  conscience  and  the 
will.  Some  say  we  shall  be  beaten.  Be  it  so.  But  defeat 
with  God  and  the  truth  is  better  than  victory  without  God 
and  against  the  truth.  We  may  be  forced  to  suffer  evil,  but 
let  us  not  do  evil.  Of  this  I  am  sure,  that  if  we  accept  a 
compromise  such  as  is  proposed,  we  shall  not  avert  disestab- 
lishment, but  shall  rather  hasten  it.  The  Church  of  Ireland 
accepted  such  a  compromise  in  1868,  and  was  disestablished 
in  1869.  And  in  what  condition  shall  we  then  be  ?  That 
of  a  demoralized  and  broken  army.  There  will  be  no  mutual 
confidence  among  us.  Many  of  the  Clergy  and  Laity  will 
say  that  they  have  been  betrayed  by  the  Bishops,  and  will 
be  suspicious  of  them,  and  be  alienated  from  them.  We  shall 
not  be  able  to  work  together.  Bishops  will  be  separated 
from  Clergy,  and  Clergy  from  Bishops.  We  shall  be  a 
house  divided  against  itself.    But  by  union  in  the  truth, 


400 


Miscellanies. 


we  may,  with  God's  help,  avert  disestablishment ;  and 
even  if  we  do  not,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
disestablishment  with  sound  principles  is  far  preferable  to 
Establishment  without  them.  Let  us  endeavour,  with  God's 
help,  to  maintain  the  truth ;  and  may  He  defend  the  right ! 

The  following  Resolution  on  this  subject,  was  moved  at 
the  Conference  by  Sir  Charles  H.  J.  Anderson,  Bart.,  and 
seconded  by  the  Right  Rev.  the  Bishop-Suffragan  of  Not- 
tingham, and  was  carried  by  113  to  15  : — 

1 '  That  while  this  Conference  respects  the  conscientious 
scruples  of  others,  and  is  ready  to  co-operate  in  any  reason- 
able measures  for  removing  their  real  grievances,  it  is  of 
opinion,  that  the  compulsory  introduction  of  other  Services 
than  those  of  the  Church  of  England  into  her  Burial-grounds, 
would  be  an  infringement  of  her  rights,  and  an  invasion  of 
her  property,  and  an  infliction  of  a  grievance  on  the  con- 
sciences of  her  members,  and  a  contravention  of  those  pur- 
poses for  which  her  churchyards  have  been  set  apart  by  a 
solemn  act  of  Consecration." 


ON  LABOUR  AND  CAPITAL. 


The  present  season  of  distress,  in  our  Agricultural  as  well  as 
in  our  Manufacturing  districts,  may  suggest  many  serious 
questions,  financial  and  economical,  to  the  politician,  the 
patriot,  and  the  philanthropist. 

With  these  topics  I  will  not  meddle ;  but  the  crisis, 
through  which  we  are  passing,  appears  to  be  forcing  on 
our  minds  the  consideration  of  other  subjects  of  even  greater 
gravity  and  deeper  interest,  which  lie  at  the  root  of  our 
national  prosperity.  "  Shall  there  be  evil  in  a  city"  (asks 
the  Ruler  of  the  "World  by  the  prophet),1  "  and  the  Lord 
hath  not  done  it?"  and  by  another  prophet2  He  says,  "The 
Lord's  voice  crieth  in  the  city,  and  the  man  of  wisdom  shall 
see  thy  name.    Hear  ye  the  rod,  and  who  hath  appointed  it." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Almighty  God  is  speaking 
to  us  in  our  present  national  visitations.  In  the  prophet's 
language,  His  voice  crieth  in  the  city,  and  it  will  be  our 
wisdom  to  hear  His  voice,  and  to  inquire  "Who  has  appointed 
the  chastisement  by  which  we  are  suffering,  and  what  is  it 
intended  to  teach  us?" 

Is  it  not  true  that  our  present  calamities  are  due  in  a 
great  measure  to  what  may  be  called  moral  failures,  and  (if 
we  may  so  speak)  moral  insolvencies,  and  to  forgetfulness 
of  our  religious  obligations  ?  It  is  not  undeniable  that 
many  have  been  living  a  luxurious  life  of  lavish  extrava- 
gance, and  have  been  vying  with  one  another  in  ambitious 
display,  without  thrift  or  forethought ;  and  contracting 
habits  of  unrestrained  self-indulgence,  so  that  when  the 
day  of  trial  arrives,  they  are  unable  to  meet  it  ?  How 
many  foreign  markets  have  been  closed  against  us  through 

1  Amos  iii.  6.  :  Micah  vi.  9. 

VOL  III  D  d 


402 


Miscellanies. 


dishonest  adulteration  of  our  home  manufactures.  Have  we 
not  to  acknowledge  the  prevalence  of  a  spirit  of  gambling 
in  rash  speculation,  and  in  reckless  over-production  ?  May 
it  not  be,  that  God  is  now  calling  us  to  a  reckoning  for  viola- 
tions of  His  Law,  revealed  in  His  Written  Word  ? 

These  and  like  questions  are  now  put  to  us  by  our  present 
distress ;  and  our  calamities  may  be  overruled  for  future 
good,  if  they  have  the  effect  of  making  us  look  more  closely 
into  our  own  hearts,  and  of  inducing  us  to  test  and  reform 
our  lives  by  the  standai'd  of  His  commandments. 

There  is  one  aspect  of  this  subject  on  which  I  would 
enlarge  by  way  of  illustration  of  my  meaning,  as  to  the 
salutary,  practical  influence  of  Christian  principles,  on  our 
Agricultural  and  Commercial  welfare,  and  on  our  material 
prosperity ;  and  as  showing  what  we  may  hope  for  as 
a  Nation,  if  we  maintain  those  principles  in  the  training  of 
the  rising  generation ;  and  also,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
results  we  may  expect,  socially,  politically,  and  nationally, 
if  we  allow  Board  Schools  (as  now  constituted)  to  super- 
sede our  Church  Schools,  and  if  we  suffer  secular  instruction 
to  supersede  religious  education. 

A  strife  has  arisen — a  war  has  broken  out — between  Labour 
and  Capital.  The  din  of  discord  is  heard  in  our  populous 
cities — in  our  factories  and  foundries,  in  our  mills,  work- 
shops, and  warehouses,  and  in  our  mines ;  and  has  even 
penetrated  into  the  quiet  retirement  of  our  rural  villages. 
Labour  makes  a  bold  appeal  to  Capital,  and  says,  "  What 
will  your  wealth  avail  you,  unless  it  is  made  productive  by 
my  hands  ?  It  will  remain  inert  and  unfruitful,  like  un- 
wrought  ore  in  the  mine,  or  like  unhewn  marble  in  the 
quarry,  or  like  hidden  pearls  in  the  ocean."  If  Capital 
and  Labour  are  at  variance,  society  will  be  disorganized 
and  distracted  by  a  struggle  disastrous  to  employers  and 
employed. 

What  can  reconcile  them  ? — Christianity.  It  has  done 
this  work  under  more  difficult  circumstances,  and  can  do  it 
again.  Let  us  think  of  the  population  of  slaves  which 
swarmed  in  the  cities  of  Greece  and  Rome  in  ancient  days. 
They  were  spoken  of  by  their  employers  as  "  living  ma- 


Labour  and  Capital — St.  Paul.  403 


chines"3  and  "chattels"  to  be  sold  by  auction;  and  the 
consequence  was,  that,  when  an  opportunity  offered,  they 
rose  in  revolt  against  their  masters,  and  endangered  the 
safety  of  the  nation  by  a  social  and  servile  war.4  Heathen 
Antiquity  had  bitter  experience  of  something  worse  than 
the  "  strikes"  of  modern  days. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  society  when  Christianity  ap- 
peared in  the  world.  How  did  it  deal  with  this  problem  ? 
The  Apostolic  Epistles — especially  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul/ 
and  notably  his  Epistle  to  Philemon — supply  an  answer  to 
that  question. 

Christianity  did  not  make  itself  a  political  partisan  by 
espousing  the  claims  of  one  class  against  the  other.  It  would 
neither  be  a  parasite  of  the  rich,  nor  inflame  the  passions  of 
the  poor.  It  would  not  act  the  part  of  a  Publicola  or  a 
Spartacus.  It  would  not  bid  for  popularity  by  flattering  the 
immense  multitude  of  slaves  with  highly-coloured  pictures 
of  their  own  political  power  and  importance,  nor  would  it 
exasperate  and  stimulate  them  to  insurrection  by  plausible 
commiseration  of  their  wrongs ;  but  it  held,  with  a  firm  and 
steady  hand,  the  balance  impartially  between  Capital  and 
Labour,  and  it  reconciled  and  harmonized  both.  On  the  one 
side,  it  preached  to  the  slave  the  duty  of  loyal  obedience, 
and  comforted  him  with  the  assurance  that  faithful  service 
rendered  to  an  earthly  master,  as  to  Christ,6  would  receive 
an  eternal  reward  in  heaven,  and  that  so  he  would  be  "  the 
Lord's  freeman."7  On  the  other  hand,  it  boldly  told  the 
master  that  he  had  "  a  Master  in  heaven,"  with  Whom  there 
is  no  respect  of  persons,  and  that  he  was  responsible  to  that 
Master  for  the  souls  of  his  slaves,  and  that  his  slave  was  his 
brother  in  Christ ;  and  in  Christ's  name  it  required  him  to 
treat  his  slave  "  not  now  as  a  slave,  but  above  a  slave ;  a 
brother  beloved  in  Christ." 8 

And  what  was  the  result  of  such  exhortations  as  these  ? 

3  Aristot.  Ethic.  Nicoin.  viii.  13 ;  Polit.  i.  4. 
*  As  under  Spartacus,  B.C.  73. 

5  Eph.  vi.  5—9.  Col.  iii.  22;  iv.  1.  1  Tim.  vi.  1,  2.  Titus  ii.  9—12. 
1  Pet.  ii.  18—20. 

6  Eph.  vi.  5—8.  Col.  iv.  8.  1  Tim.  vi.  1.  '  1  Cor.  vii.  22. 
8  Eph.  vi.  9.  Col.  iv.  1,  9.  Philemon  lfi. 

d  a  2 


4o4 


Miscellanies. 


The  wintry  frosts  of  slavery  were  gradually  thawed  and 
melted  away  under  the  genial  influence  of  the  warm  sunbeams 
and  vernal  breezes  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  Who,  by  His 
Incarnation,  has  bound  all  together,  whether  bond  or  free, 
as  fellow-members  in  His  own  mystical  Body  ;  and  has  made 
them  to  be  children  of  one  heavenly  Father  by  adoption  and 
grace,  and  brethren  of  the  same  household,  and  fellow- 
worshippers  in  the  same  churches  and  at  the  same  altars  on 
earth,  fellow-citizens  of  the  same  country,  and  fellow-heirs 
of  the  same  everlasting  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Here  is  an  example  and  instruction  for  us.  Heaven  for- 
bid that  we  should  imagine  that  the  British  mechanic  or 
labourer  is  in  the  same  condition  as  the  Greek  or  Roman 
slave.  But  is  it  not  too  true,  that,  by  some  capitalists  and 
employers  of  labour,  they  are  regarded  as  little  better  than 
"living  machines"  ?  They  are  called  "hands,"  as  if  they 
had  no  hearts  ;  and  they  are  treated  by  some  as  if  they  had 
not  immortal  souls,  redeemed  by  the  Blood  of  Christ,  and  as 
if  their  masters  were  not  responsible  in  the  sight  of  God  for 
them,  and  as  if  the  eternal  welfare  of  their  souls  was  a  thing 
of  no  concern  to  those  by  whom  they  are  employed. 

We  read  in  Holy  Scripture  that  the  patriarch  Abraham 
had  more  than  three  hundred  servants,9  and  that  he  took 
care  that  every  one  of  them  should  be  brought  into  covenant 
with  God,1  and  that  God  blessed  him  for  his  fatherly  regard 
and  care  of  their  spiritual  welfare.2  We  know  that  Phile- 
mon, the  Christian  master  at  Colossee,  had  "  a  church  in  his 
own  house,"3  and  rejoiced  to  welcome  St.  Paul  to  it,  and 
encouraged  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel;  and  that  Onesimus 
and  his  fellow-servants  kneeled  there  in  prayer  with  their 
master,  as  beloved  brethren  in  Christ. 

Let  the  employers  of  labour  in  our  cities  imitate  these 

examples.    God  be  thanked,  we  can  point  with  joy  to  many 

English  Philemons,  who  are  wisely  mindful  of  these  things, 

and  act  in  a  generous  consciousness  of  their  unspeakable 

importance.    Let  us  hope  and  pray  that  the  time  may  come, 

when  every  employer  of  labour  will  recognize  the  truth,  that 

9  Gen  xiv.  14.  «  Gen.  xvii.  23—27. 

-  Gen.  xviii.  19.  1  Philemon  2. 


Duties  of  Capitalists,  Employers,  and  Patrons.  405 

they  who  enrich  him  by  the  toil  of  their  bodies  have  a  claim 
on  him  for  a  supply  of  spiritual  provision  for  their  souls. 
Let  him  regard  them  with  affectionate  care,  as  brethren 
beloved  in  Christ.  Let  him  build  schools  and  churches  for 
them,  and  contribute  to  the  maintenance  of  a  Christian 
Ministry  for  them.  Let  him  be  sure  that  this  will  be  no 
unprofitable  investment  of  his  capital  even  in  this  world. 
It  will  unite  the  hearts  of  employers  and  employed  in  the 
bonds  of  Christian  brotherhood.  It  will  be  a  pledge  of  love 
and  peace.  And  when  all  the  labours  of  earth  are  over,  and 
all  its  works  shall  have  vanished  away,4 — when  the  sound  of 
the  mills  of  Nottingham  is  heard  no  more,  and  the  din  of  the 
foundries  of  Lincoln  is  silenced  for  ever, — it  will  have  its 
abundant  reward,  in  the  blessed  Sabbath  of  eternity. 

Such  remarks  as  these  may  be  addressed  especially  to 
those  who  live  in  our  populous  towns.  But  we  must  not  for- 
get that  there  are  others  who  are  large  proprietors  or  occu- 
piers of  land  in  agricultural  districts. 

Some  among  us  are  Patrons  of  ecclesiastical  benefices. 
Let  me  earnestly  entreat  them  as  they  love  the  Lord  who 
bought  them,  and  as  they  fear  Hira  as  their  future  Judge, 
to  regard  the  exercise  of  Church  Patronage  as  a  solemn  trust 
to  be  exercised  as  in  His  sight,  for  His  honour,  and  for  the 
good  of  the  souls  which  He  has  purchased  with  His  own 
Blood.  He  will  require  a  strict  account  hereafter  how  it 
has  been  exercised,  and  He  will  bless  and  reward  all  who 
exercise  it  aright. 

Patrons  of  benefices,  lay  impropriators  of  tithes,  and  large 
proprietors  of  land,  must  look  for  a  solemn  reckoning  here- 
after. Would  to  God  that  all  would  duly  meditate  upon  it, 
especially  that  they  would  take  pity  on  God's  ministers  and 
their  families,  who  are  sometimes  left  to  starve  on  a  slender 
pittance,  while  the  lords  of  the  soil  and  the  owners  of  the 
tithes  are  living  in  affluence  and  luxury. 

But  to  extend  our  range  further.    Each  of  us  has  a  trust. 
Each  of  us  is  God's  steward.  The  souls  of  our  farm  labourers, 
and  of  our  servants,  are  committed  to  our  care  by  Him. 
We  owe  them  the  duty  of  a  good  example ;  the  duty  of 
4  2  Pet.  iii.  10—12. 


406 


Miscellanies. 


piety  toward  God,  in  hallowing  His  Day,  in  attendance  at 
His  House,  and  at  His  Holy  Table,  and  in  honouring  and 
helping  His  Ministers,  especially  in  all  that  concerns  His 
service. 

"  Thy  people  are  as  they  that  strive  with  the  priest,"  were 
the  prophet's  words  when  he  described  a  desperate  state  of 
immorality;5  and  the  wise  man  says,  "Fear  the  Lord  with 
all  thy  soul,  and  reverence  His  priests."6 

Let  us  endeavour  to  maintain  a  spirit  of  religion  in  our 
parishes  by  daily  family  prayer ;  and  by  encouraging  our 
dependents  to  come  to  Church,  and  to  Confirmation,  and  to 
Holy  Communion.  If  our  parish  church  is  in  an  unseemly 
condition ;  if  the  roof  is  pervious  to  the  rain ;  the  walls  green 
with  damp ;  the  windows  ill  glazed ;  the  body  of  the  church 
choked  up  with  pews ;  and  if  it  look  like  a  place  where  men 
meet  to  sit  and  hear,  or  even  to  loll  and  sleep,  rather  than 
to  kneel  down  and  pray,  let  the  zeal  for  God's  House  con- 
sume us,  as  it  is  said  of  David  and  of  Christ;7  and  let  us  not 
rest  till  we  have  done  what  we  can  for  it.8  Let  God's  House 
be  first  cared  for,  and  He  will  bless  us  in  ours.  Let  our 
lay  brethren  think  much  of  His  spiritual  household — their 
poor  neighbours.  Let  them  encourage  their  wives  and 
daughters  to  take  an  interest  in  the  Sunday-school  and  in 
the  day-school — let  them  be  school  teachers  and  district 
visitors.  And  let  the  Clergy  be  entreated  to  stir  up  the 
members  of  their  own  households  to  such  good  works  as 
these,  and  to  associate  their  parishioners  and  their  families 
as  fellow -workers  with  them.  Let  us  try  to  give  all  our 
people  something  to  do  for  the  Church,  and  they  will  take 
more  interest  in  it.  Parochial  councils,  Church  Committees 
of  lay  communicants,  associated  with  churchwardens  and 
sidesmen  under  the  guidance  of  the  Clergy,  for  parochial  con- 
sultation and  action  j  Bible  Classes,  Communicant  Classes, 
or  Church  Guilds,  for  spiritual  edification,  ought  to  be 
organized  where  possible.  We  want  more  of  personal 
sympathy  in  the  Church  of  England,  more  of  individual 
application  of  the  pastoral  office,  and  of  its  ministrations,  to 

4  Hosea  iv.  4.  6  Ecclus.  vii.  9. 

7  Ps.  lxix.  9-  John  ii.  17.  s  Ps.  cxxxii.  3  4. 


Church  Restoration. 


407 


the  special  needs  and  affections  of  our  people,  if  we  are  to 
recover  those  who,  alas  !  are  now  estranged  from  us,  and  if 
we  are  to  retain  those,  who,  thanks  be  to  God,  are  now  in 
communion  with  us. 

Thus  we  may  hope  for  more  of  peace  and  love  upon  earth, 
and  for  eternal  union  in  heaven. 9 

9  I  cannot  close  these  remarks  without  referring  with  thankfulness  to  the 
Christian  efforts  of  large  capitalists  and  employers  of  labour  in  towns  of  this 
Diocese — such  as  the  late  Mr.  Adams,  and  Mr.  George  Moore  of 
Nottingham — for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  persons  in  their  employ ; 
and  to  what  has  been  done  in  the  city  of  Lincoln  for  Church  extension  by 
others  in  a  like  spirit.  Both  Nottingham  and  Lincoln  have  been  happily 
distinguished  by  exemption  from  strifes  between  Labour  and  Capital,  and 
by  a  spirit  of  harmony  among  employers  and  employed. 

More  than  a  million  sterling  has  been  expended  in  Church  restoration 
in  the  Diocese  between  1840  and  1874.  The  particulars  may  be  seen  in 
my  "  Diocesan  Addresses,"  1876,  pp.  117 — 140. 


ON  CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT. 


A  Pamphlet  entitled  "  Capital  Punishment  ;  dedicated  to 
the  Church,"  was  published  at  London,  in  1867. 

I  felt  it  my  duty  to  deal  with  the  question  in  a  Sermon  in 
Westminster  Abbey  on  Nov.  24,  1867;  parts  of  it  are 
reprinted  here. 

Its  Author  requested  my  attention  to  a  passage  in  that 
Pamphlet,  which  refers  to  Genesis  ix.  6,  and  which  animad- 
verts on  the  sense  that  is  assigned  to  that  Text  in  our 
Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible,  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's 
blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 

The  strictures  of  the  Pamphlet  on  that  rendering  in  our 
English  Bible  are  as  follows  (page  56)  : — 

"  '  By  man  shall  his  blood/  &c. — What  makes  all  the 
more  mournful  the  conduct  of  such  of  the  more  learned  of  the 
Clergy  as  uphold  "  Capital  Punishment "  upon  the  strength 
of  this  passage,  is,  that  they  must  be  fully  aware,  that  the 
words  '  by  man,'  upon  which  the  gist  of  their  argument 
wholly  depends,  are,  if  not  a  downright  dishonest,  at  least  an 
unscholarly  rendering,  and  find  no  equivalent  of  any  kind  in 
the  Septuagint,  nor  even  in  the  Latin  Vulgate  (wherein 
certainly  no  pains  are  taken  to  uphold  the  Creator's  character 
of  '  Love'),  nor  in  Wycliffe's  Version  of  the  Bible,  nor  in 
other  important  Versions.  But  they  apparently  rely  upon 
the  large  bulk  of  their  readers  being  unacquainted  with 
these  circumstances,  and  preach  or  write  from  the  Text,  as 
if,  instead  of  being  looked  upon  by  Biblical  critics  as  having 
been  frailly  Englished,  it  was  universally  acknowledged  to 
be  in  perfect  unity  with  the  original  Hebrew." 

Such  are  the  allegations  of  the  Pamphlet. 


On  Capital  punishment — Gen.  ix.  6.  409 


The  Writer  of  the  Pamphlet  in  question  appeals  to 
"  Biblical  Critics ;"  let  us  therefore  see  what  they  say. 

I  will  not  quote  any  who  may  be  supposed  to  be  biassed 
in  favour  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  of  our  Version. 

Let  us  consider  them. 

The  learned  Hebraist,  Dr.  Kalisch,  in  his  Translation  of 
the  Book  of  Genesis  (p.  220)  renders  the  Text  verbatim  as 
it  is  rendered  in  our  Authorized  Version.  And  he  adds 
the  following  note  on  the  Text,  in  confirmation  of  it,  in  his 
Commentary,  p.  221. 

"  [ba — Adam]  (ver.  6),  which  is  to  be  connected 

with  the  following  part  of  the  verse,  is  emphatically  placed 
first  (Gesen.  Gram.  §  142.  2:  Ewald,  Gram.  §  565),  to  enjoin 
that  murder  is  to  be  visited  on  earth  by  man ;  and  that  the 
punishment  is  not,  as  in  other  cases,  to  be  left  to  Divine 
retribution. " 

Dr.  Kalisch's  Hebrew  brethren,  De  Sola  (Minister  of  the 
congregation  of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews),  /.  L.  Lin- 
dcnthal  (Reader  and  Secretary  to  the  New  Synagogue), 
and  Dr.  M.  J.  Raphall  (Lecturer  at  the  Synagogue  and 
Head  Master  of  the  Hebrew  National  School  at  Birming- 
ham), have  put  forth  a  revised  Version  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  (Lond.  1844).  Their  rendering  of  the  Text  coin- 
cides also  literatim  with  the  rendering  in  our  Authorized 
Version. 

Let  us  now  see  what  the  most  eminent  German  Critics  of 
the  present  day  say  on  this  point.  Dr.  Karl  Friedrich  Keil, 
whose  Biblical  learning  is  unquestionable,  gives  the  following 
interpretation  of  this  Text,  and  the  following  note  upon  it, 
in  his  Commentary  (Biblischer  Commentar,  Leipzig,  1861, 
p.  101).  "  '  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed.'  By  these  words  God  vests  His  own  punitive 
power  in  human  hands and  he  then  quotes  the  words  of 
Martin  Luther  :  "  Here  "  (remarks  Luther  on  this  place) 
"  is  the  first  commandment  touching  the  temporal  sword. 
Temporal  Government  was  established  by  these  words ;  and 
God's  right,  the  sword,  was  put  into  its  hands ;"  "  Hie 
igitur  fons  est,  ex  quo  manat  totum  jus  civile,  et  jus  gentium. 
Nam  si  Deus  concedit  homini  potestatem  super  vitam  et 


Miscellanies. 


mortem,  profccto  etiam  concedit  potestatem  super  id  quod 
minus  est,  ut  sunt  fortunge,  familia,  uxor,  liberi,  servi,  agri. 
Haec  omnia  vult  certornm  hominum  potestati  esse  obnoxia 
Deus,  ut  reos  puniant." 

Dr.  M.  Baumgarten,  in  his  excellent  Exposition  of  the 
Pentateuch  (Commentar  zum  Pentateuch;  Kiel,  1843,  p. 
121),  thus  speaks  in  his  note  on  this  text  (Gen.  ix.  6): 
"  Here  it  is  ordered  that  the  Blood  of  the  Murderer  shall  be 
shed  by  man.  Man  is  commissioned  to  execute  the  divine 
retribution,  and  is  appointed  to  be  God's  Vicegerent  upon 
earth.  Jehovah  Himself  is  not  visible  on  earth,  but  in 
heaven;  therefore  He  is  represented  on  earth  by  the 
deputies  of  His  injured  Majesty." 

The  same  rendering  is  given  also  by  Dr.  Aug.  Knobel,  in 
his  commentary  on  Genesis  (Leipz.  1860,  p.  98). 

I  will  only  add  here  the  words  of  the  learned  Noncon- 
formist, Henry  Ainsworth,  whose  Version  of  the  Pentateuch 
is  justly  esteemed  for  its  literal  accuracy.  He  also  renders 
the  words  precisely  in  the  same  manner  as  they  are  rendered 
by  the  above-recited  Expositors,  and  as  they  stand  in  our 
Authorized  Version,  and  in  the  following  remarks  :  "  Whoso 
sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 
And  he  subjoins  the  following  note  (p.  42,  Lond.  1627)  : 
"  His  blood  shall  be  shed,  that  is,  by  the  Magistrate,  whose 
power  is  here  stablished  for  killing  all  wilful  murderers,  as 
the  Clialdee  expresseth  it,  saying  '  With  ivitnesses,  by 
sentence  of  the  Judges,  shall  his  blood  be  shed.'  " 

So  much,  then,  for  Biblical  Critics  and  Translators. 
Their  testimony  to  the  accuracy  of  our  English  Authorized 
Version  is  as  strong  as  possible. 

Now,  one  word  as  to  Lexicographers. 

That  the  Hebrew  words  D^NZL  m  this  Text  are  rightly 
rendered  in  our  Authorized  Version  "  by  man"  will  appear 
from  the  statement  of  Gesenius,  in  his  "  Thesaurus,"  under 
the  preposition  3. ,  where  he  says  (p.  99,  ed.  Tregelles)  that 
this  preposition  intimates  the  agent  (Latin per),  e.  g.  "by 
the  hand  of  Moses,"  or  "  by  God;"  or  the  instrument,  or 
efficient  cause,  as  by  fii'e.  And  Dr.  Julius  Fnerst  makes  a 
similar  assertion  (which  might  be  confirmed  by  innumerable 


Meaning  of  the  text  Gen.  ix.  6.  411 


examples  from  the  Hebrew  Scriptures)  in  his  Lexicon 
(p.  1  74,  ed.  Davidson) . 

With  regard  now  to  Ancient  Versions.  The  Septuagint 
(to  which  the  Author  of  the  Pamphlet  appeals)  has  the 
following  words  here ;  6  eK-^ewv  alfia  avOpw-nov,  ayr)  rou 
aifj,aro<;  avrou  eK%v$r]<TeTat, ;  that  is,  "Whoso  sheddeth 
man's  blood,  shall  be  shed  (or  poured  out)  instead  of  his 
blood ;"  a  sentence  which  no  Hebrew  and  Greek  scholar 
will  affirm  to  be  -a  literal  equivalent  to  the  original.  This 
rendering  is,  like  many  others  of  the  Septuagint,  a  para- 
phrase, and  it  does  in  fact  amount  to  the  same  thing  as  is 
expressed  in  our  Version ;  for  if  the  murderer  is  to  be  slain, 
it  is  clear  that  some  man  must  slay  him.  And  what  argu- 
ment can  thence  be  derived  by  those  who  would  abolish 
capital  punishment  for  wilful  mui-der,  it  is  not  easy  to  see. 

The  Vulgate,  which  often  follows  the  Septuagint,  renders 
the  words  thus  : — 

"  Quicunque  effuderit  humanum  sanguinem,  fundetur 
sanguis  illius  ;"  that  is,  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  his 
blood  shall  be  shed  "  (i.  e.  by  man)  ;  on  which  a  similar 
remark  may  be  made. 

The  Arabic  and  Syriac  versions  are  more  literal,  and 
confirm  the  rendering  of  our  own  Authorized  Version.  The 
authority  of  the  Chaldee  Targum  has  been  already  mentioned 
as  also  confirmatory  of  that  translation. 

As  to  Wycliffe's  Version  (to  which  the  Pamphlet  also 
appeals),  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  inquire  what 
its  rendering  is,  because  it  is  notorious  that  Wycliffe  did  not 
translate  from  the  Hebrew  Original.1  But  the  renderings 
in  the  Versions  of  Luther,  the  Geneva  Version,  the  Versions 
of  Tremellius  and  Pagnini,  which  were  made  from  the 
Hebrew — all  coincide  with  the  rendering  in  our  Authorized 
Translation. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  may  be  confidently  affirmed  that 
Biblical  Critics,  Lexicographers,  and  Versions,  corroborate 
the  rendering  of  this  text,  as  given  in  our  Authorized 
Version. 

1  See  "  Complete  History  of  the  English  Translations  of  the  Bible,"  by 
the  Eev.  John  Lewis,  p.  21,  ed.  Loud.  1739. 


412 


Miscellanies. 


Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  these  words,  "  Whoso 
sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed  :  for 
in  the  image  of  God  made  He  man  "  (Gen.  ix.  G). 

That  was  the  declaration  of  Almighty  God  to  the  Patriarch 
Noah  and  his  sons,  when  they  came  forth  out  of  the  Ark 
after  the  Flood,  and  when  He  made  a  covenant  with  them, 
as  the  sole  survivors  of  the  human  family,  and  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  future  generations. 

The  post-diluvian  race,  and  their  immediate  successors, 
had  a  difficult  work  to  perform.  They  were  not  permitted 
by  God  to  remain  together  in  one  body;  but  they  were 
commanded  by  Him  to  separate,  and  to  replenish  the  earth.2 
This  was  the  trial  of  their  faith.  They  were  few,  and  must  go 
forth  in  weak  companies  into  a  wide  uncolonized  world. 
But  God  assured  them  of  His  protection.  He  pledged 
Himself  to  defend  them.  He  recognized  in  Man  His  own 
divine  image.  Thus  Man  was  invested  with  dignity  and 
sanctity ;  and  acts  of  violence  against  him  were  to  be 
punished  as  outrages  against  God.  And  God  constituted 
Man  as  His  own  Vicegerent  for  executing  the  divinely 
appointed  penalty  for  such  aggressions  against  the  divine 
Majesty,  reflected  in  man  God's  image  and  likeness ;  and 
He  pronounced  this  solemn  edict  against  wilful  murder  : 
"  At  the  hand  of  every  man's  brother  will  I  require  the  life 
of  man  :  whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed ;  for  in  the  image  of  God  made  He  man." 

It  has  been  alleged  by  some,  whose  opinions  are  entitled 
to  respectful  attention,  that  Capital  Punishment— that  is, 
punishment  by  Death — is  inconsistent  with  Justice  and 
Charity,  and  ought  never  to  be  inflicted;  and  that  those 
continental  Nations,  which  have  abolished  Capital  Punish- 
ment, ought  to  be  imitated  by  us.  Life  (they  say)  is  the 
gift  of  God,  and  ought  not  to  be  taken  away  by  any  but  by 
God.  And  Christ  says  in  the  Gospel,  "  Resist  not  evil."  3 
Much  more,  therefore,  do  not  inflict  it.  And  what,  it  is 
asked,  can  be  a  greater  evil,  than  that  a  man,  with  his  sins 
on  his  head,  and  with  his  hands  stained  with  blood,  should 
be  sent  out  of  the  world  into  the  presence  of  his  Almighty 
2  Gen  ix.  1.  3  Matt.  v.  39. 


Arguments  against  Capital  Punishment.  413 


Judge,  to  receive  his  everlasting  doom  ?  And,  it  is  asked, 
shall  man — weak,  sinful  man — arrogate  to  himself  the 
Divine  prerogative  of  cutting  short  the  life  of  a  brother, 
and  place  himself  on  the  throne  of  God,  and  become  the 
Arbiter  of  Eternity  ? 

These  are,  indeed,  serious  questions,  and  claim  careful 
consideration.    What  may  we  say  to  them  ? 

Almighty  God  is  our  Father :  Infinite  in  Mercy,  Infinite 
in  Justice,  Infinite  in  Wisdom  :  and  He  has  vouchsafed  to 
give  a  reply  to  these  questions  in  His  Holy  Word;  and 
from  that  Divine  oracle  there  is  no  Appeal.  "  He  that 
smiteth  a  man  that  he  die,  shall  surely  be  put  to  death."  4 
And  again,  "  He  that  killeth  any  man  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death  :  "  5  and  again,  "  The  murderer  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death  :  "  6  and  again,  "  Ye  shall  take  no  satisfaction  for  the 
life  of  a  murderer,  which  is  guilty  of  death,  he  shall  surely 
be  put  to  death  :  " 7  and  again,  "  Ye  shall  not  pollute  the 
land  wherein  ye  are ;  for  blood  it  defileth  the  land ;  and  the 
land  cannot  be  cleansed  of  the  blood  that  is  shed  therein, 
but  by  the  blood  of  him  that  shed  it."  8 

Such  are  the  judicial  declarations  of  Almighty  God  Him- 
self in  His  Holy  Word.  Their  meaning  cannot  be  mistaken; 
and  since  He  is  the  Author  of  Life  and  Death,  since  He  "  is 
the  only  Lawgiver  who  is  able  to  save  and  to  destroy,"  9 
therefore  all  human  opinions,  and  all  human  authority,  must 
bow,  in  reverent  submission,  before  His  divine  supremacy. 

Nor  let  it  be  alleged,  that,  because  these  declarations 
are  derived  from  the  Code  which  God  gave  by  Moses  to  the 
Hebrew  Nation,  they  therefore  were  addressed  to  the  Hebrew 
Nation  alone,  and  do  not  concern  us.  They  were,  it  is  true, 
promulgated  to  the  Israelites ;  but  they  were  not  promul- 
gated to  them  as  Israelites,  but  as  men.  They  are  a  part  of 
primeval  Jurisprudence,  antecedent  to  all  written  Law,  and 
are  of  universal  and  perpetual  application.  They  are 
grounded  on  God's  Attributes ;  and  on  Man's  Nature. 
They  are  engraven  on  Man's  heart,  and  are  uttered  by  his 

4  Exod.  xxi.  12,  14.  «  Lev.  xxiv.  17. 

Num.  xxxv.  18.  '•  Num.  xxxv.  31. 

s  Num.  xxxv.  33.  '•'  James  iv.  12. 


414 


Miscellanies. 


Conscience,  which  is  the  Voice  of  God.  How  otherwise  can 
we  explain  the  language  of  the  first  murderer,  Cain,  "  Every- 
one that  findeth  me  shall  slay  me"  ?  1  He  pronounced  the 
sentence  of  Death  on  himself.  And  although  God,  for  wise 
reasons,  thought  fit  to  interfere  to  prevent  the  execution  of 
that  sentence  in  his  case,  yet  that  voice  of  Cain,  and  that 
special  intervention  of  God,  proved  what  the  judicial  sen- 
tence of  murder  was,  even  from  the  beginning.2 

Nor  was  this  all.  Immediately  after  the  Flood,  that  is, 
nearly  nine  hundred  years  before  the  Levitical  Law,  God 
thought  fit  to  confirm  that  aboriginal  and  unwritten  Law, 
by  a  solemn  edict  promulgated  by  His  own  Divine  Voice : 
"  At  the  hand  of  every  man's  brother  will  I  require  the  life 
of  man.  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed  ;  for  in  the  image  of  God  made  He  man." 

These  words  prove,  that  what  God  said  to  the  Israelites 
in  this  respect,  was  not  said  to  them  as  Israelites,  but  as 
men,  and  is  to  be  extended  to  all.  For  what  is  the 
ground  on  which  God  based  the  prohibition  of  murder,  and 
on  which  He  authorized  and  enjoined  the  infliction  of  the 
punishment  of  Death  for  it  ?  It  is,  because  man  is  made 
in  the  image  of  God:  and  whoever  sheds  man's  blood,  violates 
God's  image  :  and  man  is  armed  with  authority  by  God,  and 
is  invested  with  a  commission  from  Him,  to  visit  that  viola- 
tion by  death.  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall 
Itis  blood  be  shed:  for  in  the  image  of  God  made  He  man." 

Again,  let  it  not  be  said,  that  this  primeval  Law,  pro- 
claimed even  by  Cain  himself,  and  promulgated  by  God  to 
Noah,  the  father  and  representative  of  the  new  generation 
of  mankind  after  the  Flood,  and  renewed  with  the  most 

1  Gen.  iv.  14. 

2  The  consent  of  Mankind  that  wilful  Murder  ought  to  be  punished  by 
Death  is  expressed  by  the  Greek  poet : — 

'Airt  fiiv  €\6pas  ykuxrerqs  (\6pa 
TXSjaaa  TfXeicrOco — rov(p€i\oij.€vov 

Updcrcrovaa  Aikt/  p.ey  avrtl — 
'Aiti  Se  7rA>7yr?y  (povias  (povlav 
nXr)yr/i>  rivera) — Spdaavn  naOetv, 

Tpiyepav  pv6os  rd$e  (pwvei. 

JEschyl.  Choephor.  303. 


Grounds  of  Capital  Punishment.         4 1 5 

solemn  sanctions  at  Mount  Sinai,  has  been  abrogated  by 
Christianity.  No  :  Christianity  has  not  repealed  any 
original  Law.  Rather  it  has  given  new  sanctions  to  it. 
Especially  has  it  confirmed  this  Law,  which  imposes  the 
punishment  of  Death  for  Murder.  For,  on  what  is  this 
Law  grounded  ?  It  is  based  by  God  Himself  on  the  fact 
that  Man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God. 

At  the  Flood,  when  God  uttered  those  Words,  the  Image 
of  God  in  Man  had  been  much  marred  and  blemished.  Still 
it  survived  there :  and  it  waited  for  the  time  when  its  dim 
characters  would  be  gilded  afresh,  and  be  restored  to  their 
original  lustre.  This,  and  more  than  this,  was  done  at  the 
Incarnation  of  Christ.  At  the  first  Creation,  Man  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God ;  but  at  the  second  Creation,  or  Incar- 
nation of  Christ,  God  Himself  took  our  nature,  and  became 
"Immanuel,"  "God  with  us,"  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh." 
The  Son  of  God,  Who  is  "  the  brightness  of  His  Father's 
Glory,  and  the  express  Image  of  His  Person,"3  became  Man; 
and  in  Him,  as  the  Apostle  speaks,  "  we  have  put  on  the 
new  man,  which  is  renewed  in  knowledge  after  the  image  of 
Him  that  created  him;"*  and  Man  has  become  "a  member 
of  Christ,"  "  a  Temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  5 

Much  more  forcibly,  therefore,  may  it  be  said  now,  than 
it  could  have  been  said  to  Noah,  "  In  the  image  of  God 
made  He  man,"  God  has  made  us  anew  in  Christ.  He 
therefore  who  sheds  the  blood  of  man,  abuses  the  strength 
of  that  human  nature  which  the  Son  of  God  Himself  has 
taken;  and  he  abuses  it  to  violate  that  nature  which  the  Son 
of  God  has  joined  indissolubly  by  His  Incarnation  to  the 
Nature  of  God. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  allegation,  that  it  is  not  consistent 
with  Justice  and  Mercy,  that  man  should  take  away  the  life 
of  his  brother  man,  and  send  him  to  the  tribunal  of  God ; 
and  that  therefore  the  punishment  of  Death  ought  not  to  be 
inflicted  by  any  human  authority. 

But  what  says  the  God  of  Mercy  and  Justice  ?    "  Whoso 

3  Heb.  i.  3.    Cp.  2  Cor.  iv.  4.    Col.  i.  15. 

4  Col.  iii.  10.  s  1  Cor.  iii.  17  ;  vi.  IS). 


416 


Miscellanies. 


sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  liis  blood  be  shed,  for 
in  the  image  of  God  made  He  man."  It  is  not  left  a  matter 
of  choice  whether  man  should  punish  murder  by  Death. 
God  requires  him  to  do  so.  But  let  it  not  be  therefore  said, 
that  it  is  Man,  acting  merely  as  Man,  influenced  by  human 
motives,  or  as  the  delegate  of  any  earthly  power,  who  is 
authorized  and  commissioned  to  do  so.  No ;  it  is  not  man 
as  man,  but  it  is  man  as  God's  image,  acting  in  His  name, 
and  by  His  authority,  and  in  obedience  to  His  law,  who  is 
enabled  and  commanded  to  do  it.  It  is  God  Himself  acting 
by  man,  as  His  deputy  and  minister, — for  the  maintenance 
of  His  honour,  and  the  execution  of  His  commandments — 
Who  does  it.  Law  is  God's  Voice ;  and  the  civil  Magistrate 
is  God's  Deputy,  and  Vicegerent,  His  Minister  and  Bepre- 
sentative.  The  sword  which  he  bears,  is  not  the  sword  of 
man,  but  of  God  ;  and  he  must  "  not  bear  it  in  vain,"  but 
must  use  it  in  obedience  to  Him,  and  for  the  execution  of 
His  law,  for  the  punishment  of  the  outrage  against  God's 
image  and  Majesty,  and  for  the  protection  of  human  Society, 
which  is  an  institution  of  God. 

This  is  clear  from  the  Christian  Scriptures.  "  Let  every 
soul  "  (says  St.  Paul)  "  be  subject  to  the  higher  powers ; 6 
for  there  is  no  power  but  of  God ;  the  powers  that  be  are 
ordained  of  God;  whosoever  therefore  resisteth  the  power 
resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God,  and  they  that  resist  shall 
receive  to  themselves  damnation.  For  rulers  are  not  a  terror 
to  good  works,  but  to  the  evil.  Wilt  thou  then  not  be 
afraid  of  the  power  ?  Do  that  which  is  good ;  and  thou 
shalt  have  the  praise  of  the  same.  For  he  is  the  minister  of 
God  to  thee  for  good.  But  if  thou  do  that  which  is  evil,  be 
afraid ;  for  he  beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain,  for  he  is  the 
minister  of  God,  an  avenger  to  execute  wrath  upon  him  that 
doeth  evil."  7 

Therefore,  at  the  Coronation  of  the  Sovereign  Princes  of 
England,  the  Sword  of  Justice  is  taken  from  the  altar,  and 

0  Or  rather  "  authorities,"  f^ovaiau,  and  so  throughout  the  passage. 
It  is  not  physical  power,  but  lawfully  constituted  authority,  of  which 
the  Apostle  is  speaking. 

7  Rom.  xiii.  1 — 4. 


Hozv  mercy  is  to  be  shown. 


417 


before  the  delivery  of  that  Sword  these  words  are  uttered  : 
"  Hear  our  prayers,  0  Lord,  we  beseech  Thee;  and  so  direct 
and  support  Thy  servant  our  Sovereign,  that  the  Sovereign 
may  not  bear  the  sword  in  vain,  but  may  use  it  as  the  Minister 
of  God,  for  the  punishment  of  evil  doers,  and  for  the  protec- 
tion and  encouragement  of  those  that  do  well,  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord."  8  And  at  the  delivery  of  that  sword, 
similar  words  are  used :  "  Receive  this  Kingly  sword, 
brought  now  from  the  Altar  of  God.  With  this  sword  of 
Justice  stop  the  growth  of  iniquity,  punish  and  reform  what  is 
amiss,  and  confirm  what  is  in  good  order;  that,  doing  these 
things,  you  may  be  glorious  in  all  virtue ;  and  so  faithfully 
serve  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  this  life,  that  you  may  reign 
for  ever  with  Him  in  the  world  to  come." 

This  grave  question  has  been  argued  also  on  the  ground 
of  human  sympathies.  Be  it  so.  We,  who  contend  for  the 
supremacy  of  divine  Law,  can  never  concede  that  we  are 
doing  any  violence  to  human  affections.  God  is  the  Author 
of  human  nature.  And  our  affections  are  a  very  large  and 
important  part  of  that  nature  ;  and,  as  all  God's  works  are 
in  perfect  harmony  with  one  another,  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  right  exercise  of  our  affections  will  be  found  to  be  in 
complete  consistency  with  His  Law,  and  also  with  the  best 
interests  of  human  Society,  which  is  God's  work. 

We  are  called  upon  by  some  to  sympathize  with  mur- 
derers ;  and,  therefore,  to  abolish  the  punishment  of  death 
for  murder.  We  do  sympathize  with  murderers.  We 
sympathize  with  all — especially  with  those  in  sin  and  sorrow. 
But  how  are  we  to  show  our  sympathy  ?  Are  we  to  proceed 
on  the  supposition  that  God  is  not  merciful,  and  does  not 
feel  sympathy  with  human  weakness  and  affliction  ?  Nay, 
He  is  our  loving  and  tender  Father,  and  He  proved  His 
love  for  us  by  giving  His  Son  to  die  for  us.  And  this  com- 
passionate God  has  said,  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by 
man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 


8  See  the  "  Form  and  Order  of  the  Coronation  in  Westminster  Abbey, '• 
p.  33.    London,  1838. 

VOL.  III.  E  c 


4iS 


Miscellanies. 


And,  let  us  be  sure,  that  even  in  this  command,  stern  as 
it  may  seem,  there  is  Mercy.  Consider,  how  many  murders 
have  been  prevented  by  it.  How  much  bloodshed  has  it 
checked.  How  many  persons  have  been  deterred  by  it  from 
becoming  murderers.  How  much  the  peace  and  safety  of 
families  is  protected  by  it.  How  much  is  the  very  existence 
of  Monarchies  and  States,  and  of  human  Society,  defended 
and  secured  by  it. 

Let  us  show  our  sympathy  with  the  murderer  by  all 
means  in  our  power.  And,  therefore,  let  us  not  buoy  him 
up  with  illusory  hopes  for  this  world,  and  thus  do  him 
irreparable  and  everlasting  wrong,  by  drawing  off  his  mind 
from  penitential  preparation  for  Death,  Judgment,  and 
Eternity.9  But  let  us  pray  for  him  and  with  him.  Let  us 
provide  him  with  a  wise  and  holy  spiritual  guide,  to  convince 
him  of  sin,  to  bring  him  to  repentance  and  thus  to  console 
him.  Let  us  assure  him  that  the  punishment  of  Death  itself 
is  not  a  great  evil,  but  that  the  punishment  which  God 
inflicts  after  death  on  the  impenitent  is  the  evil  to  be  dreaded; 
and  that,  if  he  is  truly  penitent  for  his  sins,  then  he  may 
escape  that  punishment,  by  faith  in  that  blood  which  has 
been  shed  for  him — even  "the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God,  which  cleanseth  from  all  sin ; "  1  and  that  this 
blood  is  of  such  heavenly  power  and  divine  virtue,  as  to 
wash  away  the  stains  of  blood  from  his  hands,  and  from 
his  heart.  Let  us  thus  show  our  sympathy  with  the 
murderer,  and  then  he  will  be  blessed  hereafter  with  the 
penitent  malefactor,  whom  Christ  saved  on  the  cross.  He 
will  thankfully  go  to  death,  yes,  he  will  joyfully  welcome  it, 
as  some  reparation  for  the  wrong  done  by  him  to  his  victim 
and  to  society,  and  as  an  act  of  submission  to  God's  law, 
and  he  will  bless  us  for  evermore. 

And  here  let  us  consider  what  is  proposed  by  some  to  be 
substituted  in  the  place  of  Capital  punishment  for  Murder; 

9  The  Tbeodosian  Code  strictly  forbad  this ;  Cod.  Theodos.  ix.  40, 
L.  15  :  "  Reos,  tempore  provocations  emenso,  nullus  aut  teneat  aut 
defendat ;  "  and  the  Bishops  were  enjoined  to  take  care  that  this  should 
not  be  done. 

1  1  John  i.  7. 


Solitary  confinement  unmerciful.  4 1 9 


Solitary  confinement.  Now  keeping-  steadily  before  our 
eyes  the  truth,  that  it  is  not  death,  but  the  things  after 
death,  that  are  to  be  feared ;  and  that  the  thing  to  be 
desired  is  not  life  on  earth,  but  everlasting  life  in  heaven; 
we  affirm  that  the  alternative  proposed  as  a  substitute  for 
Capital  punishment,  namely,  solitary  confinement,  and  penal 
servitude,  is  infinitely  the  more  cruel  of  the  two. 

It  has  not  the  same  good  effect  of  deterring  men  from 
committing  murder:  and  therefore  is  not  so  beneficial  to 
society  as  Capital  punishment.  It  removes  the  fear  of 
bodily  death  (which  is  a  wholesome  thing),  and  it  engenders 
a  sullen,  moody  temper,  and  not  unfrequently  produces 
insanity.  It  is  therefore  very  unfavourable  to  the  exercise 
of  repentance,  and  consequently  to  reconciliation  with  God, 
and  to  the  attainment  of  eternal  happiness,  through  Christ, 
after  death.  It  is  therefore  unmerciful 2  to  man,  as  to  his 
best  and  highest  happiness. 

Again,  men  speak  of  sympathy  for  murderers.  But 
ought  we  not  to  speak  also  of  sympathy  for  their  murdered 
victims?  Men  weep  for  Cain;  but  have  they  no  tears  for 
Abel  his  brother,  weltering  in  his  blood  at  his  feet  ?  Are 
we  to  have  no  pity  for  sorrowing  relatives — for  an  aged 
father,  it  may  be,  or  a  widowed  mother,  or  desolate  wife, 
and  orphan  children — suddenly  bereft  of  their  comfort  and 
support  ?  It  is  said  by  some,  that  it  is  a  cruel  thing  to  send 
the  murderer  unprepared  into  another  world,  to  his  last 
account.  But  his  act  was  committed  by  his  own  deliberate 
will ;  and  the  punishment  of  murder  by  death  is  no  new 
thing ;  it  is  nearly  as  old  as  Creation;  and  he  who  commits 
murder  ought  to  be  prepared  for  death,  as  the  punishment 
of  his  crime.  And  even  after  he  has  committed  murder,  he 
still  lives,  and  has  time  for  preparation  for  death.  But 
innocent  men,  living  quietly  at  home  in  their  houses,  ought 
not  to  expect  to  be  murdered.  And  are  we  not  to  feel 
sympathy  with  them,  when  sent  suddenly  into  Eternity 
by  the  murderer's  hand,  and  into  the  presence  of  their 
Judge  without  any  preparation  for  it  ?    And  have  we  no 

2  Compare  William  Wordsworth's  Sonnets  on  the  Punishment  of  Death, 
Sonnets  xi.,  xii. 

E  e  2 


420 


Miscellanies. 


sympathy  for  human  Society,  whose  safeguards  will  be 
overthrown  ? — Are  we  to  have  no  sympathy  with  our  Police 
force,  the  guardians  of  public  peace  and  order,  whose  lives 
will  be  imperilled,  and  who  will  be  tempted  to  abandon 
their  posts,  and  to  leave  Society  to  the  mercy  of  its  worst 
enemies,  if,  by  ill-advised  sympathy  with  criminals,  we 
encourage  crime;  and  if,  by  zeal  for  murderers,  we  give  a 
premium  to  murder  itself?  Is  it  not  to  be  feared,  that 
assassinations  are  becoming  more  common  among  us,  because 
the  assassin  already  speculates  on  popular  sympathy  ?  This 
has  been  much  more  the  case  in  those  countries  where 
Capital  punishment  has  been  abolished.  How  many 
Sovereigns  in  Europe  in  the  last  few  years  have  been  in 
imminent  danger  of  death  from  the  hand  of  the  murderer, 
supposing  himself  to  be  a  hero.  Let  us  beware,  lest,  by 
removing  any  of  the  bai*riers  which  the  arm  of  God  Himself 
has  raised  against  murder,  we  ourselves  become  accessory  to 
it,  and  bring  His  wrath  on  ourselves,  and  confusion  on  our 
country;  for  "Blood,"  He  says,  "  defileth  the  land." 3 
And  again,  "  Blood  toucheth  blood,  therefore  shall  the  land 
mourn."  4  And  again,  "  The  land  is  full  of  bloody  crimes, 
and  the  city  is  full  of  violence.  Therefore  destruction  cometh, 
and  they  shall  seek  peace,  and  there  shall  be  none.  Mischief 
shall  come  upon  mischief,  and  rumour  upon  rumour.  The 
king  shall  mourn,  and  the  prince  shall  he  clothed  with  desola- 
tion, and  the  hands  of  the  people  shall  he  troubled."  5 

True  sympathy  is  thoughtful  and  wise.  It  is  not  partial ; 
it  takes  a  comprehensive  view.  It  looks  around,  it,  looks 
backward,  and  it  looks  forward.  It  looks  beyond  the  hori- 
zon of  this  world  to  Eternity.  Thus  it  is  most  merciful  to 
those  who  would  otherwise  become  criminals ;  and  it  is 
merciful  even  to  criminals  themselves.  And  this  its  charac- 
ter is  due  to  its  reverence  for  God's  will  and  work.  It 
knows  that  men  may  indeed,  if  they  so  will,  abolish  the 
penalty  of  temporal  Death,  but  they  cannot  abrogate  God's 
sentence  of  eternal  Death.  Men  may  remove  the  terrors  of 
the  gallows,  but  they  cannot  quench  the  flames  of  the  Lake 

3  Num.  xxxv.  33.  4  Hos.  iv.  2,  3. 

5  Ezek.  vii.  23—27. 


Practical  conclusion. 


of  fire.  The  penitent  malefactor  on  the  scaffold  may  escape 
eternal  Death,  through  God's  mercy  in  Christ;  but  if  we 
abrogate  the  punishment  of  temporal  Death,  and  thus 
diminish  the  salutary  horror  for  murder,  and  encourage 
men  to  commit  it,  then  we  tempt  them  to  incur  the  penalties 
of  Eternal  Death  ; — penalties  a  million  times  more  dreadful 
than  that  of  temporal  Death — the  penalties  of  "  the  worm 
that  dieth  not,  and  of  the  fire  that  is  not  quenched." 0 

Thus,  then,  we  have  seen,  on  the  whole,  that  the  infliction 
of  the  punishment  of  Death  for  wilful  murder,  is  the  course 
most  consistent  with  Wisdom,  Justice,  and  Mercy.  How, 
indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise,  since  it  is  the  course  pre- 
scribed by  God  Himself,  Who  is  infinitely  wise,  just,  and 
merciful  ? 

Finally,  there  is  one  way  in  which  we  all  are  bound  to 
labour  and  pray  for  the  abolition  of  the  punishment  of 
Death.  And  that  is  by  the  'prevention  of  crime  which 
incurs  it.  This  can  only  be  effected  by  means  of  Christian 
Education ;  by  setting  before  the  eyes  of  all,  especially  the 
young,  the  eternal  terrors  which  God  Himself  denounces 
against  sin,  and  the  infinite  joys  which  He  promises  to  piety 
and  virtue.  The  maintenance  of  a  belief  in  the  certainty  of 
Future  Rewards  and  Punishments  is  one  of  the  surest  safe- 
guards of  the  framework  of  human  society.  It  is  the  sense  of 
God's  Omnipresence  and  the  dread  of  a  Judgment  to  come 
which  can  give  ubiquity  to  Law.  It  is  the  Gospel  and  the 
Gospel  alone — with  its  sanctions  of  hopes  and  fears,  and  all 
its  means  of  spiritual  grace,  which  can  hallow  a  State, 
and  consecrate  the  Throne  and  shield  the  Sovereign  upon  it, 
and  protect  us  all  in  our  homes.  May  God  of  His  infinite 
mercy  so  order  our  wills,  in  obedience  to  His  Law,  that  this 
may  indeed  be  so !  Then  England  will  enjoy  the  high 
honour  and  privilege  of  showing  to  the  world  by  her 
example  that  "  Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation ; " 7  and 
thus  will  her  "  Peace  be  as  a  River,  and  her  Righteousness 
as  the  waves  of  the  Sea."  8 


fi  Mark  ix.  43 — 48.    See  Rev.  xxu  8  ;  xxii.  15. 

-  Prov.  xiv.  34.  s  Isa.  xlix.  23. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND; 

PAST,  PRESENT,  AND  FUTURE. 


The  folloiving  sermon  was  preached  before  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  on  Sunday,  18th  November,  1877. 


"  And  he  said,  Go  thy  way,  Daniel ;  for  the  words  are  closed  up  and 
sealed  till  the  time  of  the  end.  Many  shall  be  purified,  and  made  white, 
and  tried  ;  but  the  wicked  shall  do  wickedly :  and  none  of  the  wicked 
shall  understand;  but  the  wise  shall  understand." — Daniel  xii.  9,  10. 

It  is  the  manner  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  sacred  prophecy  to 
pass  rapidly  from  one  future  event  to  another  foreshadowed 
by  it,  however  far  Off  that  other  event  may  be.  Thus  in 
Psalm  lxxii.,  after  describing  the  peaceful  monarchy  of  Solo- 
mon, He  proceeds  to  foretell  the  glory  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ,  the  Divine  Solomon,  the  Prince  of  Peace.  So  our 
Lord  Himself,  when  sitting  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  having 
pre-announced  the  national  judgment  hanging  over  Jeru- 
salem, goes  on  to  predict  His  own  second  Advent  and  the 
universal  Judgment  of  the  world.  Similarly  the  prophet 
Daniel  in  the  Scripture  before  us,  having  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  revealed  the  sufferings  which  the  Hebrew  Church 
and  nation  would  endure  in  the  time  of  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes,  King  of  Syria,  passes  on  by  a  quick  transition  to 
unfold  the  trials  which  await  the  Christian  Church  in  the 
latter  days. 

Brethren,  bear  with  me  for  saying  that  to  one  whose 
retrospect  in  this  place  reaches  back  for  fifty-seven  years, 
it  is  a  subject  for  serious  inquiry  whether  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  and  the  World  during  that  time  there  has  not 
been  a  gradual  tendency  towards  a  fulfilment  of  this  pro- 


Retrospect  of  the  past  half -century .  423 

phecy  of  Daniel.  Looking  back  on  events  which  have 
occurred  in  the  last  half-century,  I  would  now  propose, 
with  God's  help,  to  use  them  as  an  occasion  for  offering  to 
you,  my  younger  brethren,  some  suggestions  as  to  your 
own  duty  consequent  upon  them. 

And  first,  in  reviewing  the  past,  we  may  recognize  a 
remarkable  change  in  popular  opinion  concerning  the  origin 
and  claims  of  Authority,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical.  After 
the  great  conflict  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  there  still 
survived  in  the  public  mind  some  belief  that  Authority  is 
derived  from  God,  as  St.  Paul  teaches  in  his  thirteenth 
chapter  to  the  Romans,  and  St.  Peter  in  the  second  chapter 
of  his  first  Epistle;  and  that  obedience  is  due,  for  the 
Lord's  sake,  to  lawful  Authority,  in  things  not  unlawful,  and 
that  resistance  to  Authority  in  such  things  is  resistance  to 
God  Himself.  But  this  belief  has  now  been  greatly  weakened, 
and  Authority  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  derived  from 
earth  and  not  from  heaven,  and  from  man  and  not  from 
God,  and  to  have  no  other  claim  upon  allegiance  than  that 
wdiich  depends  on  the  voice  of  the  People,  and  not  on  the 
will  of  God. 

This  change  having  taken  place,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
many  ancient  Dynasties  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  should 
have  been  uprooted,  and  that  there  should  be  little  prospect 
of  permanence  for  those  forms  of  Government  which  have 
succeeded  them.  In  one  great  neighbouring  Country, 
France,  there  have  been  more  than  sixteen  different  forms 
of  Government  in  rapid  succession  in  the  last  eighty  years. 
It  would  seem  as  if  Daniel's  prophecy  (ii.  40 — 43)  is  now 
being  fulfilled,  that  the  Governments  of  the  latter  days 
which  were  to  grow  up  after  the  dissolution  of  the  fourth  or 
Roman  Empire  would  be  like  miry  clay  mingled  with  iron, 
but  not  cleaving  to  it.  Is  there  not  a  marvellous  accuracy 
in  this  prophetic  description  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  some  of 
these  Governments  are  like  miry  clay,  being  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  and  brittle  as  potsherds,  by  reason  of  their  demo- 
cratic element?  And  is  it  not  also  true  that  they  are 
mingled  with  iron,  as  deriving  power  not  from  moral, 
spiritual,  and  heavenly  influences,  but  from  the  earthly 


424 


Miscellanies. 


mineral  and  rigid  iron  of  physical  coercion  and  rnilitar}' 
force  ?  And  is  it  not  true  also,  that,  like  mingled  iron  and 
clay,  they  have  no  principle  of  cohesion  and  co-operation  ? 

Together  with  this  change  in  popular  opinion  as  to  the 
origin  and  claims  of  Authority,  two  other  Powers  have 
grown  up,  and  have  acquired  fresh  force  in  opposition  to 
that  authority. 

Men  crave  protection  and  they  admire  strength.  If  they 
cannot  find  it  in  Monarchies,  deriving  their  authority 
from  God,  they  will  constitute  supreme  powers  for  them- 
selves. Wherever  they  see  Power  endued  with  vigorous 
energy,  combined  with  well  compacted  organization,  they 
gravitate  towards  it,  especially  if  it  acts  with  devotion  and 
faith,  and  seems  to  rely  on  the  support  of  what  is  unseen 
and  eternal.  On  one  side,  therefore,  at  this  time,  some 
persons  almost  deify  the  Roman  Papacy.  They  adore  the 
Roman  Pontiff  as  the  Vicegerent  of  God,  as  wielding  the 
power  of  the  Most  High,  as  disposing  of  the  things  of  Time 
and  Eternity,  and  as  having  dominion  over  the  human  reason, 
conscience,  and  will,  and  as  the  Infallible  Judge  in  matters 
both  of  faith  and  morals  (as  was  declared  in  the  Vatican 
Council  of  1870),  and  as  having  supremacy  over  all  Govern- 
ments, civil  and  ecclesiastical. 

On  the  other  side,  by  an  excess  of  reaction,  some  have 
been  driven  to  defy  all  Authority,  whether  temporal  or 
spiritual,  and  to  cast  away  all  belief  in  a  personal  Ruler  of 
the  world,  and  in  future  Rewards  and  Punishments,  and  to 
place  the  People  on  the  Throne  of  God. 

These  two  forces,  being  antagonistic,  are  now  preparing 
for  a  violent  conflict.  They  are  hostile  to  one  another ;  but 
both  of  them  are  opposed  to  legitimate  authority,  and  will 
do  what  they  can  to  subvert  it. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  our  own  Country. 

The  condition  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  a  National 
Establishment  of  religion,  has  been  greatly  modified  by 
events  in  the  last  sixty  years.  The  changes  in  our  Constitu- 
tion have  affected  the  character  of  the  Legislature.  The 
admission  into  the  Legislature  of  persons  who  do  not  accept 
the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  and 


Position  of  the  Church  of  England.  425 


the  gravitation  of  the  population  to  our  great  towns,  where 
the  Church  is  weak,  and  where  her  work  is  opposed  by  a 
flood  of  cheap  Literature  hostile  to  religion  and  society,  have 
led  to  the  enactment  of  laws  altering  the  position  of  the 
Church.  The  Union  of  Scotland,  and  more  recently  of 
Ireland,  with  England,  has  naturally  exercised  a  powerful 
influence  on  the  Imperial  Legislature.  It  may  be  almost 
said  that  the  destinies  of  the  Church  of  England,  in  her 
relations  to  the  State,  depend  now  not  so  much  on  England 
herself,  as  on  the  opinions  and  desires  of  Scottish  Presbyte- 
rianism,  and  Irish  TJltramontanism ,  joined  with  Sectarianism, 
Scepticism,  and  Secularism,  leagued  against  her.  This  has 
been  exemplified  in  a  remarkable  manner  by  recent  debates 
and  decisions  in  the  Imperial  Legislature  concerning  the 
Burial-grounds  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  majority  of 
one  hundred  and  eight  English  votes  in  defence  of  our 
English  churchyards  was  reduced  to  thirty-three  by  Irish, 
Scotch,  and  Welsh  votes. 

The  suppression  of  Ten  Bishoprics  in  Ireland,  the  alteration 
of  the  tithe  system  in  that  country,  the  disestablishment  of 
the  Irish  Church  in  1869,  are  some  of  the  ecclesiastical 
events  there.  The  ease  also  with  which  Church  Patronage 
has  been  recently  abolished  in  Scotland  (a.d.  1874)  is 
significant  of  the  popular  feeling  there ;  and  the  breaking 
up  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  into  three  separate  forms  of 
Presbyterianism,  seems  to  augur  ill  for  the  maintenance  of 
any  one  religious  establishment  in  that  country. 

In  England  the  greater  portion  of  the  revenues  of  our 
Cathedral  and  Collegiate  Churches  has  been  alienated  by 
recent  legislative  enactments,  which  did  not  provide  for  the 
efficient  discharge  of  capitular  duties.  Church  rates  have 
ceased  to  be  obligatory.  The  Marriage  Law  of  the  Church 
has  been  set  aside  by  the  Legislature,  and  great  facilities 
have  now  been  given  to  Divorce,  and  even  to  the  marriage 
of  the  guilty  parties.  The  Parochial  Schools  of  the  Church 
can  claim  no  subsidy  from  the  State,  except  by  restricting 
the  teaching  of  religion  within  narrow  limits  of  time ;  and 
the  Elementary  Schools  of  the  State  exclude  all  distinctive 
religious  formularies  from  their  system  of  instruction.  The 


426 


Miscellanies. 


changes  made  by  recent  legislation  in  the  religious  character 
of  our  Colleges  and  Universities  are  too  well  known  to  you 
to  need  any  notice  from  me. 

A  question,  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  and  on  which 
the  maintenance  of  the  Establishment  hangs,  is  now  pending. 
A  few  years  ago  church  rates  were  abolished,  on  the  plea 
that  our  churches  and  churchyards  do  not  belong  to  the  Nation 
but  to  the  Church  of  England  ;  and  that  it  was  unfair  that 
persons  dissenting  from  the  Church  should  be  taxed  for 
their  support.  But  now  this  argument  is  inverted ;  and  it  is 
alleged  that  our  churches  and  churchyards  do  not  belong  to 
the  Church  of  England,  but  to  the  Na  tion ;  and  that,  since 
they  are  national  property,  persons  of  any  religious 
persuasion,  or  of  no  religious  persuasion  at  all,  ought  to  be 
permitted  freely  to  officiate  at  burials  in  our  English  church- 
yards. 

It  is  candidly  avowed  by  many  who  use  this  language 
that  the  same  principle  ought  to  be  applied  to  our  churches; 
and  if  this  avowal  is  made  by  them  now,  what  will  be  their 
language  if  their  confidence  is  increased  and  their  power 
aggrandized  by  surrender  ?  We  know  that  in  the  troubles 
of  the  seventeenth  century  in  England  our  churches  were 
alienated,  together  with  our  churchyards,  and  we  know  how 
miserable  were  the  results.  May  we  not  say  that  the 
surrender  of  our  sacred  places,  which  have  been  solemnly 
dedicated  to  God,  would  be  followed  by  calamities  similar  to 
those  which  befell  the  Hebrew  Church,  when,  according  to 
Daniel's  prophecy,  her  sanctuary  was  profaned,  in  the  days 
of  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  and  "  the  abomination  and  desola- 
tion "  was  set  up  in  the  Temple  of  God  ? 

These  and  other  signs  of  the  times  are  sufficient  to  show 
that  the  Church  of  England  is  beleaguered  by  a  formidable 
confederacy  of  powerful  adversaries,  who  are  resolved,  if  they 
are  able,  to  reduce  her  to  the  same  condition  as  that  to  which 
the  Church  of  Ireland  has  been  lately  reduced.  And  if  it 
should  please  God,  for  our  sins,  to  humble  the  Church  of 
England  in  the  dust,  as  she  was  humbled  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  it  is  probable  that  her  downfall  would  be  followed 
by  the  ruin  of  other  National  Institutions  (as  it  then  was  by 


Practical  application. 


427 


the  abolition  of  the  legislative  power  of  the  Peerage,  and 
the  Monarchy ),  and  by  the  spread  of  anarchy  and  confusion, 
of  fanaticism  and  impiety;  and  that  England  might  bo 
reduced  to  the  condition  of  some  other  great  nations  of 
Europe. 

What,  then,  is  our  own  duty  under  such  circumstances  as 
these  ?  First,  to  endeavour  to  revive  in  the  public  mind  a 
recognition  of  the  divine  origin  of  Authority,  as  declared  in 
Holy  Scripture.  Is  it  not  true  that  this  feeling  needs  to  be 
awakened  in  rulers  as  well  as  in  subjects  ?  If  parents, 
masters,  and  employers  of  labour,  and  if  governors,  civil  and 
ecclesiastical,  were  resolved  to  act  in  the  consciousness  that 
the  authority  with  which  they  are  invested  is  received  from 
God  ;  and  that  He  will  call  them  to  a  strict  account  at  the 
Great  Day  how  they  have  used  it ;  then  they  would  reverence 
the  authority  they  possess,  as  a  sacred  trust  from  heaven,  and 
would  never  abuse  it  to  gratify  their  own  selfish  desires,  or 
for  any  other  purpose  than  the  glory  of  God  and  the  welfare 
of  mankind.  And  if,  on  the  other  hand,  children,  servants, 
and  subjects,  and  all  who  are  under  authority,  temporal  or 
spiritual,  understood  what  authority  is,  and  whence  it  comes  ; 
they  would  not  "  despise  dominion  and  speak  evil  of  dig- 
nities" (Jude  8),  but  would  pray  to  God  for  them,  and  would 
cheerfully  obey  authority  in  all  things  not  unlawful,  as  doing 
what  they  do,  "  not  with  eyeservice  as  menpleasers,  but  as 
to  the  Lord." 

If  this  spirit  prevailed,  the  Church  of  England  would  not 
be  weakened,  as  it  is  now,  by  intestine  strifes,  which  are 
more  dangerous  to  her  welfare  than  her  bitterest  enemies. 
We  should  not  see  some  persons,  laying  claims  to  superior 
sanctity,  and  yet  violating  the  laws  of  Christian  charity  by 
wilfully  giving  offence  to  others,  and  breaking  the  bonds  of 
Christian  unity,  by  preaching  doctrines  and  introducing 
ceremonies  alien  to  the  faith  and  worship  of  the  Church,  and 
driving  others  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  endeavouring 
to  hurry  her  onward  to  disestablishment,  as  if  it  were  a 
harbour  of  safety,  and  not  a  quicksand  of  shipwreck. 

Suffer  me  to  say  it,  for  the  sake  of  our  Country,  of  our 
Church,  and  of  our  God,  let  us  not  be  impatient.    It  may 


428 


Miscellanies. 


be  His  will  that  disestablishment  may  come ;  but  let  us  do 
nothing  to  hasten  it.  It  may  be,  that  the  temporal  authority 
may  attempt  to  impose  conditions  upon  the  Church,  which 
(if  she  is  loyal  to  her  Divine  Lord)  she  cannot  accept ;  and 
then  her  answer  must  be  with  the  Apostles,  "  We  ought  to 
obey  God  rather  than  men."  The  three  children  at  Babylon 
were  loyal  subjects,  but  they  were  content  to  be  cast  into 
the  fierv  furnace  rather  than  commit  idolatiy  at  the  king's 
command.  Daniel  was  a  loyal  subject,  but  he  would  not 
obey  the  king's  decree  and  omit  even  once  his  daily  prayers. 
We  must  indeed  submit  to  man  for  the  sake  of  God,  but  we 
must  never  disobey  God  for  the  sake  of  man.  We  must 
endeavour  to  maintain  the  Establishment  for  the  sake  of  the 
State,  but  we  must  not  sacrifice  the  Church  for  the  sake  of 
the  Establishment.  But  while  we  thus  act,  let  us  not  rush 
into  temptation,  and  lead  others  with  us.  The  Established 
Church  of  England  is  one  of  our  greatest  national  blessings. 
The  Church  of  England,  of  all  Churches  in  Christendom,  is 
one  of  the  best  teachers  of  loyalty,  and  one  of  the  most 
faithful  guardians  of  Order,  Liberty,  and  Law.  For  evidence 
of  this,  examine  her  Liturgy,  as  compared  with  that  of  any 
other  Church.  Her  rule  of  faith  is  the  written  Word  of 
God,  not  warped  by  private  opinions,  but  expounded  and 
interpreted  by  the  judgment  and  practice  of  the  Ancient 
Church  Universal.  She  holds  the  faith,  neither  more  nor 
less,  "  once  for  all  delivered  to  the  Saints,"  and  declared  in 
the  ancient  Creeds  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  she  dispenses 
spiritual  grace  freely  and  fully  in  the  holy  Sacraments 
instituted  by  Christ,  and  she  derives  the  commission  of  her 
Apostolic  Ministry  from  the  hands  of  her  Divine  Lord, 
enthroned  in  heaven,  and  communicating  that  grace  by  the 
unbroken  chain  of  succession  of  that  Apostolic  Ministry  for 
eighteen  centuries. 

To  disestablish  such  a  Church  as  this,  would  be  to  inflict 
the  heaviest  blow  that  could  fall  on  the  English  Nation. 
Bear  with  me  for  speaking  feelingly  on  this  subject.  As 
having  been  entrusted,  most  unworthily,  with  the  oversight 
of  a  large  diocese,  mainly  an  agricultural  one,  I  know  what 
Disestablishment  would  be.    Whatever  ts  ultimate  results 


Church  prospects — Burials  Bill.  429 


might  be  (under  the  controlling  and  over-ruling  providence 
of  God)  its  proximate  effect  would  be  to  pauperize  the  priest- 
hood, and  to  paganize  the  people.  Methodism,  the  most 
respectable  and  vigorous  form  of  Dissent,  has  worked  actively 
in  that  diocese,  and  is  powerful  in  its  towns,  but  it  has  no 
resident  ministry  in  its  rural  districts,  which  would  lapse 
into  a  miserable  condition,  socially,  morally,  and  religiously, 
if  they  were  deprived  of  the  personal  presence  and  salutary 
influence  of  the  parochial  clergy  and  of  their  families. 

It  is  probable  that  the  battle  of  the  English  Constitution 
will  have  to  be  fought  in  agricultural  dioceses,  where  the 
spirit  of  loyalty  is  still  strong.  If  that  spirit  were  weakened 
there  (which  it  would  be,  if  the  Church  were  disestablished 
and  disendowed)  then  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  the  Con- 
stitution would  eventually  be  at  the  mercy  of  Secularism, 
Scepticism,  Sectarianism,  Republicanism,  and  Romanism, 
and  that  its  days  would  ei'e  long  be  numbered. 

God  only  knows  whether  that  time  may  come.  Let  us  do 
what  we  can  by  His  help  to  avert  it.  We  need  much  prayer, 
courage,  patience,  and  charity.  Let  us  not  close  our  eyes 
to  the  dangers  we  are  in.  Let  us  not  be  like  those  prophets 
who  daubed  with  untempered  mortar,  and  said,  "  Peace, 
peace,  where  there  was  no  peace;"  but  let  us  "speak  the 
truth  in  love."  In  the  days  of  the  persecution  of  the  Hebrew 
Church,  as  foretold  by  Daniel,  the  enemy  began  his  attack 
upon  it  by  flattering  the  priests,  and  by  their  means  he  in- 
vaded the  sanctuary  and  destroyed  it.  As  I  have  already 
said,  a  similar  attack  is  now  being  made  against  ourselves. 
Our  adversaries  are  claiming  our  churchyards  and  our 
churches  as  national  property,  and  unhappily  we  are 
not  united  among  ourselves  in  resisting  the  assault  upon 
them.  On  one  side  nearly  14,000'  of  the  clergy  have  now 
joined  together  in  a  manifesto  against  the  invasion  of  our 
churchyards,  and  in  declaring  that,  while  they  respect  the 
conscientious  scruples  of  others  and  are  ready  to  co-operate 
in  any  reasonable  measures  for  the  removal  of  real  grievances, 
they  are  of  opinion  that  the  compulsory  "introduction  of  other 
'  The  signatures  amounted  in  Feb.  1878,  to  more  than  15,000. 


430 


Miscellanies. 


services  than  those  of  the  Church  of  England  into  her  burial- 
grounds  would  be  an  infringement  of  her  rights,  an  encroach- 
ment on  her  property,  an  infliction  of  a  grievance  on  the 
consciences  of  her  ministers  and  members,  and  a  precedent 
fraught  with  dangerous  consequences  to  the  Church  and 
Nation,  and  a  contravention  of  those  religious  purposes  for 
which  her  churchyards  have  been  set  apart  by  a  solemn  act 
of  Consecration. 

To  this  we  may  add  that  at  the  various  Diocesan  Con- 
ferences lately  held,  wherever  this  question  has  been  dis- 
cussed, these  principles  have  been  affirmed  by  the  faithful 
Laity  of  the  Church  with  no  less  energy  than  by  the  Clergy, 
and  the  opinion  of  the  recent  Church  Congress  at  Croydon 
to  the  same  effect  could  not  be  misunderstood. 

It  was  an  axiom  of  the  ancient  Church,  that  nothing 
should  be  done  by  the  Clergy  and  Laity  without  the  Epis- 
copate ;  but  it  was  also  an  axiom  that  nothing  should  be 
done  by  the  Episcopate  without  the  Clergy  and  faithful  Laity 
of  the  Church,  and  still  more  that  nothing  should  be  done 
against  them.  May  it  not,  therefore,  be  hoped  that  now, 
after  these  clear  and  decisive  utterances  of  the  Clergy  and 
Laity  of  the  Church,  the  whole  English  Episcopate  may 
henceforth  be  united  with  them  in  this  great  question  ? 
This,  indeed,  would  be  an  unspeakable  blessing ;  then  we 
might  look  forward  to  the  future  with  hope;  and  then, 
whatever  the  secular  power  may  think  fit  to  do  to  the  Church 
of  England  as  an  Establishment,  she  would  be  strong  in  the 
unity  and  mutual  confidence  of  her  members,  and  in  the 
protection  and  blessing  of  her  Divine  Lord. 

But  to  take  a  wider  view.  It  is  not  improbable,  that,  in 
these  latter  days,  to  punish  Nations  for  their  sins,  and  to 
show  the  divine  power  of  Christianity,  Almighty  God  may 
be  pleased  to  permit  His  Church  to  be  left  alone,  not  only 
independent  of  temporal  powers,  but  with  the  temporal 
powers  arrayed  against  her;  and  it  is  probable  that  the  last 
age  of  the  Church  may  be  like  the  first  age  of  the  Church 
when  she  was  openly  assailed  by  the  World.  Certain  it  is,  as 
Daniel  has  foretold,  that  in  the  latter  days  there  will  be  "  a 


The  latter  days — practical  duties.         43  1 


time  of  trouble  such  as  there  never  was  since  there  was  a 
nation."  Certain  it  is,  as  St.  John  in  the  Apocalypse  warns 
us,  that  Satan's  wrath  will  be  most  fierce  in  proportion  as 
his  time  is  short,  and  as  the  day  of  his  doom  draws  near, 
and  that  Anti-Christ  will  rage  most  fiercely  on  the  eve  of 
the  Coming  of  Christ.  But  even  if  this  should  be  the  case 
let  us  not  be  dismayed.  When  Laws  and  Institutions  fail, 
then  the  courage  of  the  faithful  becomes  more  conspicuous. 
The  dissolutions  of  National  Establishments  of  religion  are 
public  calamities,  but  they  are  tests  of  personal  devotion, 
faith,  and  zeal,  and  may  conduce  to  the  growth  and  exercise 
of  personal  holiness.  The  fall  of  Institutions  is  a  signal  for 
the  rising  up  of  Individuals.  When  the  Church  of  Israel 
was  disestablished,  and  false  worship  was  set  up  in  its  place, 
then  the  greatest  of  the  prophets,  Elijah,  came  forth  and 
stood  upon  Carmel,  a  witness  for  God  against  idolatrous 
prophets,  priests,  princes,  and  people.  You  remember  the 
parable  of  the  two  baskets  of  figs,  the  one  of  bad  and  the 
other  of  good,  in  Jeremiah.  The  one,  the  bad,  represented 
the  members  of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  who  vainly  gloried 
in  themselves  and  said,  "  The  Temple  of  the  Lord,  the 
Temple  of  the  Lord  are  these."  The  other  basket  of  good 
figs  symbolized  the  Jewish  exiles  who  had  been  chastened 
and  purified  by  their  captivity  at  Babylon.  Ezekiel,  not  at 
Jerusalem,  but  an  exile  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Chebar, 
saw  the  glory  of  the  Lord.  Daniel,  not  in  the  temple,  but 
an  exile  in  Chaldea,  had  a  revelation  of  Christ.  St.  John, 
an  exile  in  the  Isle  of  Patmos,  beheld  the  Apocalypse.  If 
Antiochus  Epiphanes  had  not  raged  against  the  Hebrew 
Church,  where  would  have  been  the  glory  of  the  faithful 
priests  Eleazar  and  Mattathias,  and  of  the  mother  and  her 
seven  martyred  children,  and  of  Judas  Maccabasus  and  his 
brethren  ? 

May  we  not  say  that  we  ourselves  have  already  been 
awakened  to  a  clearer  sense  of  our  own  solemn  responsi- 
bilities and  spiritual  privileges  by  chastisements  we  have 
lately  suffered  ?  At  the  beginning  of  this  century,  and  for 
some  years  after  it,  many  were  slumbering  in  a  torpid  bed- 
ridden orthodoxy.     The  services  of  our  Cathedrals  were 


432 


Miscellanies. 


heartless,  cold,  and  dreary.  Canonries  of  cathedrals  were 
regarded  as  sinecures.  In  the  Collegiate  Church  of  West- 
minster, with  which  I  was  connected  for  twenty-five  years, 
only  one  month's  residence  in  the  year  had  for  more  than  a 
century  been  regarded  as  sufficient  for  the  discharge  of 
canonical  duties.  In  the  Collegiate  Church  of  Southwell,  iu 
the  diocese  of  Lincoln,  only  three  months'  residence  in  four 
years  was  all  that  was  considered  requisite  for  its  canons. 
In  the  college  chapels  of  our  Universities  daily  attendance 
was  required  of  our  undergraduates,  but  many  of  the  per- 
sons who  derived  their  endowments  from  the  bounty  of 
the  founders  were  rarely  seen  worshipping  there.  In  our 
parishes  not  much  was  done  for  our  sacred  fabrics  by  volun- 
tary efforts. 

But  it  has  pleased  God  to  arouse  us,  and  new  life  has 
shown  itself  in  later  years.  Our  "vales  of  Achor"  have 
become  to  us  "  doors  of  hope."  The  change  for  the  better 
in  our  Cathedrals  is  visible  to  all.  With  regard  to  religious 
life  in  our  colleges  you  are  better  able  to  speak.  This,  how- 
ever, my  younger  brethren,  permit  me  to  say,  that  in  pro- 
portion as  the  rigour  of  academical  laws  has  been  relaxed, 
and  your  own  private  liberty  has  been  enlarged  with  regard 
to  public  religious  observances,  your  own  personal  responsi- 
bilities in  these  respects  have  been  greatly  increased.  In  a 
spirit  of  generous  confidence  you  are  thrown  back  on  your- 
selves, and  on  your  own  consciences.  Let  me  entreat  you 
to  be  a  law  unto  yourselves.  Emulate  the  spirit  of  the 
golden  age,  as  described  by  the  Roman  poet : — 

Satm-ni  gentem,  haud  vinclo  nec  legibus  sequam, 

Sponte  sua  veterisque  Dei  se  more  tenentem.    (Virg.  JEn.  vii.  203.) 

And  here  we  may  thank  God  for  having  raised  up  examples 
in  our  two  ancient  Universities  of  personal  zeal  and  devotion, 
and  moral  and  religious  courage  and  self-sacrifice,  and  self- 
dedication  to  Missionary  work  at  home  and  abroad ;  and  we 
may  thank  God  also  that  this  spirit  is  now  animating  many 
of  our  daughters  and  sisters  in  Christ,  who,  in  love  of  Him 
and  the  souls  for  which  He  shed  His  blood,  are  giving  them- 
selves up  with  holy  self-consecration  to  the  work  of  edu- 


Hopes  for  the  future. 


433 


eating  the  poor  in  schools,  and  to  the  nursing  of  the  sick  in 
infirmaries  and  hospitals,  and  to  missionary  labour  at  home 
and  in  foreign  lands,  especially  in  India  and  Africa.  And 
with  regard  to  our  parish  churches,  we  have  to  record  with 
thankfulness  to  God  that  about  twenty-eight  millions  ster- 
ling have  been  expended  in  the  last  forty  years  in  their  re- 
storation and  enlargement,  and  in  the  building  of  new  ones. 

In  other  respects,  also,  our  trials  have  been  overruled  by 
Almighty  God  stirring  our  hearts  for  good.  The  judicial 
decision  of  the  Final  Court  of  Appeal  on  the  doctrine  of 
Holy  Baptism  has  led  to  a  more  careful  examination  of  the 
teaching  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  and 
of  our  own  English  Reformers,  and  of  our  Prayer  Book,  and 
to  a  clearer  enunciation  of  the  truth  concerning  that  Sacra- 
ment. Recent  legislative  action  of  Parliament  on  Ecclesias- 
tical questions  has  led  to  a  deeper  consciousness  of  the  need 
of  a  revival  of  the  Diocesan  and  Provincial  Synods  of  the 
Church ;  and  if  it  should  please  God  to  visit  us  for  our  sins, 
and  that  the  Church  of  England  should  cease  to  be  a 
national  institution,  we  may  be  thankful  that  our  recent 
training  in  provincial  Convocations  and  in  diocesan  Synods 
and  Conferences  has  made  us  better  prepared  for  such  a 
catastrophe,  than  we  should  have  been  fifty  year3  ago. 

Again,  the  quickening  of  parochial  and  diocesan  life 
amongst  us  has  produced  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  an 
increase  of  the  Episcopate,  which  (let  us  say  it  with  grati- 
tude) Parliament  itself  has  lately  recognized,  and  will  soon, 
we  trust,  more  fully  recognize.  A  growing  faith  in  the 
Divine  constitution  of  the  Christian  Church,  as  it  existed 
from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  for  fifteen  centuries,  and  in 
the  blessings  vouchsafed  by  Almighty  God  to  the  faithful, 
by  means  of  the  Word  and  Sacraments,  dispensed  by  the 
threefold  ministry  of  Bishops,  Priests,  and  Deacons,  has  led 
to  the  foundation  of  many  new  Episcopal  Sees  in  our  foreign 
dependencies.  Our  colonial  and  missionary  Dioceses  now 
amount  to  sixty-two,  and  to  these  we  may  add  the  fifty- 
seven  sees  of  the  United  States  of  America,  which  are  the 
offspring  of  the  British  Church ;  so  that  we  can  now  count 
one  hundred  and  nineteen  dioceses  which  have  sprung  into 

VOL.  in.  f  f 


434 


Miscellanies. 


life  since  the  year  1784.    "  This  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  i 
is  marvellous  in  our  eyes." 

On  the  whole,  then,  brethren,  while  there  is  much 
warn,  there  is  also  much  to  cheer  us.  It  seems  that  ear 
the  two  antagonistic  forces  of  good  and  evil  is  now  dev  r  V  ^ 
ing  itself  with  greater  energy;  the  good  becoming  bettei,  -s.  i 
the  bad  becoming  worse.  The  spirit  of  Prophecy  revea 
clearly  that  the  last  days  will  be  days  of  conflict  between 
them.  It  seems  to  foretell  that  the  Chui'ch  of  Christ  will 
be  deprived  of  temporal  supports.  The  persecution  under 
Antiochus  Epiphanes  will  reproduce  itself  with  greater 
intensity  in  Christendom.  The  book  of  Revelation  prepares 
us  for  this  trial.  In  the  sixth  chapter,  at  the  eve  of  the  end 
of  the  world,  it  speaks  of  a  great  earthquake.  In  the  six- 
teenth chapter  it  describes  that  convulsion  by  a  symbolical 
name,  "  Armageddon  "  (the  mount  of  cutting  to  pieces)  ;  in 
the  twentieth  chapter  it  calls  it  by  another  symbolical  name, 
derived  from  Ezekiel,  the  rising  up  of  the  vast  and  diverse 
forces  of  Gog  and  Magog  against  "the  beloved  City  and 
Camp  of  the  Saints."  Whatever  may  be  the  precise  mean- 
ing of  those  words,  they  certainly  betoken  struggles  and 
confusions  and  assaults  upon  the  Church  of  God.  Our  Lord 
compares  the  latter  days  to  those  before  the  Flood,  and  to 
those  before  the  destruction  of  Sodom,  and  to  those  before 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  Such  revelations  as  these  may  well 
excite  our  vigilance.  They  are  words  of  warning  to  the 
Church  and  Realm  of  England.  "  He  that  hath  ears  to 
hear,  let  him  hear." 

My  younger  brethren,  you  will  not  suppose  that  by  such 
words  as  these  I  am  intending  to  disturb  the  peaceful  tenor 
of  your  appointed  studies  in  this  place.  No,  on  the  con- 
trary, let  me  rather  say  that  the  diligent  pursuit  of  those 
studies  is  your  best  preparation  for  the  trials  and  troubles 
of  public  life.  There  can  be  no  better  preservative  against 
"  the  oppositions  of  science,  falsely  so  called,"  which  are 
now  leading  many  astray,  than  the  habit  of  exact  reasoning, 
which  is  generated  by  the  discipline  of  Mathematical  Science, 
especially  when  hallowed  by  that  reverential  spirit  of  true 
Philosophy,  which  animated  the  mind  of  a  Bacon,  a  Newton, 


Appeal  to  the  rising  generation.  435 

and  a  Barrow,  and  in  our  own  days  of  a  Whewell,  a  Sedg- 
wick, and  a  Herschel,  whose  names  are  household  words  in 
this  University.  And  let  me  say  of  those  Classical  Studies 
which  also  claim  your  attention  here,  as  among  the  best 
instruments  of  mental  discipline ;  and  in  which  the  human 
intellect  freely  ranges  over  the  wide  domain  of  the  History, 
Philosophy,  and  Poetry  of  the  greatest  nations  of  the  ancient 
world,  that  you  will  find  in  your  future  career  that  the  con- 
tinued cultivation  of  Classical  Literature  (and  I  trust  you 
will  never  cease  to  cultivate  it)  will  elevate  and  enlarge  your 
views,  and  raise  your  minds  beyond  the  narrow  limits  and 
above  the  low  level  of  ephemeral  things ;  and  will  impart  to 
them  a  sweet  solace  in  the  cares  and  sorrows  of  public  and 
private  life;  and  will  soothe  you  with  harmonious  melo- 
dies, and  enrich  you  with  noble  recollections,  and  adorn 
your  minds  with  glorious  imagery,  and  prepare  you  for  the 
study  of  the  highest  and  holiest  of  all  sciences,  that  of 
Theology — "  the  Sabbath  and  haven  of  all  human  contem- 
plations "  (as  Lord  Bacon  calls  it),  and  for  daily  devout 
meditation  on  God's  Holy  Word,  which  will  give  you  true 
wisdom,  and  without  which  the  theories  of  politics  are 
but  illusory  dreams,  and  the  history  of  nations  a  dark  and 
unintelligible  mystery. 

Dear  friends  and  brethren,  the  destinies  of  your  Church 
and  Country  depend  mainly  under  God 'on  the  character  and 
conduct  of  the  rising  generation  of  England.  They  are  in 
your  hands.  The  shadows  of  the  latter  days  are  falling 
upon  us.  You  will  endeavour  to  avert  the  calamities  which 
seem  to  be  hanging  over  us ;  but  you  will  not  be  dismayed 
by  them.  You  will  regard  them  as  calls  from  God  to  arouse 
you  to  noble  deeds  and  heroic  sufferings  for  the  truth. 
We  have  reason  to  hope  and  believe  that  bright  examples 
of  Christian  valour,  not  inferior  to  those  of  primitive  Con- 
fessors and  Martyrs,  and  made  more  bright  by  the  darkness 
of  the  contrast,  will  shine  gloriously  in  the  gloom  of  the 
latter  days.  England  may  hope  to  see  Christian  Elijahs, 
Christian  Jeremiahs,  and  Christian  Ezekiels.  We  do  not 
expect  new  revelations.  But  is  the  Lord's  arm  shortened  ? 
Why  should  not  the  Church  of  the  latter  days  see  even  the 

f  f  2 


436 


Miscellanies. 


apostolic  courage,  zeal,  and  calmness  of  a  Paul,  a  Peter, 
and  a  John,  of  an  Ignatius,  a  Polycarp,  and  a  Cyprian  ? 
"  Many,"  says  Daniel,1  "  shall  be  purified  and  made  white 
and  tried ;  but  the  wicked  shall  do  wickedly  :  and  none  of 
the  wicked  shall  understand ;  but  the  wise  shall  understand." 
ft  They  that  are  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the 
firmament,  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the 
stars  for  ever  and  ever." 2  Earthly  dynasties  will  pass  away; 
but  the  dissolution  of  earthly  things  will  wean  your  minds 
from  this  world,  and  make  you  look  upward  to  heaven 
and  onward  to  Eternity.  Earthly  dynasties  will  pass 
away,  but  the  throne  of  Christ  endureth  for  ever.  His 
kingdom  will  never  be  destroyed.  Empires  have  been  over- 
thrown, national  Churches  may  be  disestablished,  but  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  the  Christian  Sacraments,  the  Catholic 
Creeds,  the  threefold  Ministry,  these  will  never  be  disesta- 
blished. "  The  waves  of  the  sea  may  rise  mightily,  and  rage 
horribly,  but  the  Lord  Who  dwelleth  on  high  is  mightier.3 
The  Lord  sitteth  above  the  waterflood,  the  Lord  abideth  a 
king  for  ever.4  Jesus  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  for  ever."  He  has  promised  to  be  with  us  alway,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world,  and  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
never  prevail  against  His  Church.  The  Holy  Ghost,  once 
given  at  Pentecost,  will  abide  for  ever  with  the  Church. 
"  He  that  endureth  to  the  end  shall  be  saved."  5  Therefore 
the  word  of  our  blessed  Lord  to  each  one  of  yourselves  is 
this :  "  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a 
crown  of  life."  6 


1  Dan.  xii.  10. 
3  Ps.  xciii.  5. 
5  Matt.  x.  22. 


-  Dan.  xii.  3 
4  Ps.  xxix.  9. 
6  Rev.  ii.  10. 


CONTINUITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND; 
ST.  HUGH  OF  LINCOLN. 


In  a  former  part  of  this  work1  it  has  been  mentioned  that 
the  Author,  having  resided  as  Canon  of  Westminster  for 
nearly  twenty-five  years,  in  the  house  adjoining  the  Chapel 
in  which  St.  Hugh  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  Lincoln  on 
September  21,  a.d.  1186,  accepted,  after  some  hesitation,  the 
offer  of  the  Bishopric  of  Lincoln  on  November  17th,  1868, 
being  the  anniversary  of  St.  Hugh's  death,  and  marked  as 
St.  Hugh's  Day  in  the  Calendar  of  the  English  Church. 

Nearly  ten  years  afterwards  he  was  invited  to  reopen  a 
church — that  of  Clee  in  North  Lincolnshire — which  had  been 
consecrated  by  St.  Hugh,  as  Bishop  of  the  Diocese,  in  the 
year  11 92 ;  the  record  of  which  is  still  preserved  in  a  con- 
temporary inscription  on  one  of  the  columns  of  the  church. 
These  incidents  suggested  some  reflections  on  the  Continuity 
of  the  English  Church ;  and  the  feelings  thus  produced  were 
expressed  by  me  in  the  following  address  at  the  reopening 
of  Clee  Church,  after  restoration,  on  July  20,  1878. 

"  Isaac  digged  again  the  wells  of  water,  which  they  had 
digged  in  the  days  of  Abraham  his  father;  for  the  Philistines 
had  stopped  them  after  the  death  of  Abraham ;  and  he  called 
their  names  after  the  names  by  which  his  father  had  called 
them"  (Gen.  xxvi.  18). 

It  has  been  well  said  by  a  wise  man  of  old  (St.  Augustine) 
that  the  life  of  each  of  the  Patriarchs  was  a  prophecy.  It  is 
not  only  a  history,  but  it  foreshadowed  things  to  come,  even 
to  the  end  of  time.  This  is  specially  true  with  regard  to  the 
life  of  Isaac.  In  all  things  Isaac  conformed  to  his  father's, 
Abraham's,  will,  and  reflected  his  father's  acts.  In  the 
1  Vol.  i.  310,  311. 


433 


Miscellanies. 


journey  to  the  mysterious  Sacrifice  of  Moriah — figurative  of 
Christ's  Death  and  Resurrection— the  sacred  historian  says 
twice,  in  memorable  and  far-reaching  words,  "  they  went  both 
of  them  together"  (Gen.  xxii.  6,  8),  prefiguring  thereby  the 
perfect  unanimity  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  the  great 
Sacrifice  of  the  Cross  for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  Abra- 
ham (we  read)  went  to  Gerar,  and  found  an  Abimelech  and 
a  Phichol  there.  We  read  also  that  Isaac  went  to  Gerar,  and 
found  an  Abimelech  and  a  Phichol  there.  Again,  Abraham 
made  a  covenant  with  an  oath  concerning  a,  well,  and  called 
the  place  Beer-sheba  (that  is,  the  well  of  the  oath) ;  and  we 
read  also  that  Isaac  renewed  the  covenant  with  an  oath 
concerning  a  well,  and  renewed  also  the  name  Beer-sheba. 
And  in  the  Scripture  now  before  us  it  is  said  that  "  Isaac 
digged  again  the  wells  of  water  which  they  had  digged  in 
the  days  of  Abraham  his  father  (for  the  Philistines  had 
stopped  them  after  the  death  of  Abraham; ,  and  he  called  their 
names  after  the  names  by  which  his  father  had  called  them." 

In  all  these  things  (as  ancient  Expositors  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  have  observed)  we  have  not  only  real  historical  facts, 
but  also  deep  spiritual  mysteries.    In  this  filial  conformity 
of  Isaac's  will  to  his  father  Abraham's  will,  in  the  reflexion 
of  Abraham's  life  in  his  son  Isaac's  life,  we  may  discern 
beautiful  gleams  of  that  relation  of  perfect  love  in  which  the 
Everlasting  Son  of  God,  Who  became  Incarnate  for  our  sakes, 
conformed  to  His  Father's  will,  and  reflected  His  mind.  It 
is  written  that  He  is  the  brightness  of  His  Father's  glory 
and  the  express  image  of  His  person  (Heb.  i.  3).    He  said, 
My  meat  and  drink  it  is  to  do  My  Father's  will,  and  to 
finish  His  work.     I  came  into  the  world  to  do  His  Will 
(John  iv.  34;  v.  30;  vi.  38).    The  Father  dwelleth  in  Me 
(John  xiv.  10).    The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  Himself  but 
what  He  seeth  the  Father  do  ;  whatsoever  things  He  doeth, 
these  also  doeth  the  Son  likewise.    For  the  Father  loveth 
the  Son,  and  showeth  Him  all  tilings  that  Himself  doeth 
(John  v.  19,  20). 

And  now  to  descend  to  particulars,  especially  as  to  this 
Scriptural  history  of  Wells. 

In  Paradise  itself  God  the  Father  (with  reverence  be  it 


Spiritual  Beershebas. 


439 


said)  made  a  Beer-sheba,  a  Well  of  an  Oath;  He  opened 
there  a  fountain  of  eternal  life  to  Man,  on  condition  of  his 
obedience.  Again,  at  Sinai  God  made  a  Beer-sheba ;  He 
opened  another  well-spring  and  made  another  covenant 
with  His  people,  on  a  similar  condition.  But  these  Wells 
were  stopped  by  the  Enemy.  And  what  was  the  work  of 
the  Blessed  Son  of  God  in  the  Gospel  ?  It  was  to  reopen 
these  Beer-shebas  ;  it  was  to  restore  these  Wells  of  life,  and 
to  make  them  spring  forth  again  with  a  new  effusion  of 
running  waters,  even  with  the  living  waters  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  with  the  never-failing  streams  of  the  ever-blessed 
Gospel,  in  order  to  cleanse  and  refresh  the  weary  and  thirsty 
pilgrim  travelling  through  the  wilderness  of  this  world  to 
the  Canaan  of  his  heavenly  home ;  and  to  irrigate  and 
fertilize  the  world  ;  so  that  now,  in  the  Church  of  God,  "  the 
Spirit  and  the  Bride  say,  Come  ;  and  let  him  that  heareth  say, 
Come;  and  let  him  that  is  athirst  come.  And  whosoever 
will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely"  (Rev.  xxii.  17). 

Let  us  illustrate  this  statement  by  reference  to  human 
society.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  we  read 
that  God  instituted  Marriage  in  Paradise,  in  the  time  of 
Man's  innocency,  and  made  it  to  be  a  fountain  and  well-spring 
of  all  household  charities,  and  of  all  domestic  happiness. 
Here  was  a  Beersheba.  But  in  process  of  time  this  holy 
Well  of  a  sacred  covenant  was  stopped  up.  The  Law  of 
Marriage,  given  by  God  the  Father  at  the  beginning,  was 
corrupted  by  the  sins  of  men ;  by  Polygamy,  by  facilities  of 
Divorce,  by  breaches  of  the  Marriage  Vow.  Such  was  the 
condition  of  society  in  our  Lord's  age,  in  Judea  itself. 
But  the  Son  of  God  restored  that  primeval  Beersheba.  By 
the  Incarnation  He  hallowed  our  human  Nature,  and  dig- 
nified Womanhood ;  He  espoused  to  Himself  a  Church,  and 
consecrated  Marriage,  and  beautified  it  by  His  first  miracle 
at  Cana,  and  reopened  that  sacred  well-spring  of  love  and 
peace  and  joy,  by  reinstating  Marriage  in  its  primeval, 
paradisaical  beauty,  and  more  than  Patriarchal  purity,  and 
by  protesting  against  Polygamy,  and  by  denouncing 
Divorce,  and  by  anathematizing  Adultery,  in  those  divine 
words  from  those  pure  and  holy  lips,  recalling  men's 


44Q 


Miscellanies. 


memory  to  the  day  of  "Woman's  creation  from  Man.  "  In 
the  beginning  God  created  them  male  and  female,  and  for 
this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  mother,  and  be 
joined  to  his  wife,  and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh.  What 
therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put 
asunder  "  (Matt.  xix.  5,  G.    Mark  x.  8,  10). 

"Would  to  God,  my  dear  friends,  that  the  present  gene- 
ration in  England  would  listen  to  these 'divine  words.  We 
must  speak  plainly.    In   this  nineteenth  century,  which 
vaunts  its  superior  intelligence,  the  sanctity  of  Marriage 
is  in  danger.    Domestic  purity  is  in  jeopardy,  and  house- 
hold happiness  in  peril  of  being  ruined  by  facilities  for 
Divorce,  and  by  sins  of  conjugal  infidelity;  and  wherever 
this  is  so,  we  must  bid  farewell  to  the  love  of  parents  and 
children,  and  to  all  those  graces  which  impart  a  holy  beauty 
and  joy  to  the  Christian  family,  and  which  shed  a  heavenly 
charm  and  loveliness  on  the  lives  of  children,  and  take  away 
all  bitterness  from  their  deaths,  and  make  the  grave  of 
children  to  be  like  a  beautiful  garden,  blossoming  with 
flowers  of  faith  and  hope,  full  of  immortality.  Would  to  God 
that  a  voice  of  power  were  now  lifted  up  among  us  from 
the  pulpits  of  our  Metropolitan  Cathedrals  and  Churches, 
and  in  our  great  Towns,  to  warn  us  that  God's  Judg- 
ments are  hanging  over  us,  and  that,  except  we  repent,  we 
must  look  for  an  outpouring  of  the  vials  of  His  wrath  upon 
us,  because,  although  God  formed  this  Beersheba  of  Holy 
Matrimony  in  Paradise,  and  Christ  the  Son  of  God  re- 
opened it  in  the  Gospel,  we  act  the  part  of  Philistines,  and 
stop  up  this  sacred  Well,  and  thus  bring  on  ourselves  woes 
such  as  fell  on  Jerusalem  herself,  which  rejected  the  Son  of 
God. 

But  let  us  pass  on  to  apply  this  Scripture  to  the  holy  and 
happy  work  of  to-day,  the  work  of  Church  Restoration. 

All  true  Church  Restoration  (as  its  name  implies)  is  a  work 
of  renewal.  Let  us  look  at  such  a  work,  in  the  first  place 
spiritually.  The  Church  of  Christ  is  a  Beersheba ;  a  pure 
fountain  and  well-spring  of  living  waters  flowing  from  God's 
love  in  Christ.  Such  was  the  primitive  Church  of  Christ,  a 
Beersheba.  a  "  Well  of  an  oath,"  of  a  covenant  between 


The  Church  of  England  a  Beersheba.  441 


God  and  Man ;  a  Beersheba,  flowing  with  the  living  waters 
of  the  Spirit  in  Holy  Scripture ;  a  Beersheba  in  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  of  Holy  Baptism  and  in  the  Communion  of 
Christ's  Blessed  Body  and  Blood,  deriving  all  their  virtue 
from  His  opened  and  bleeding  side  on  the  Cross ;  a  Beer- 
sheba in  the  Christian  Ministry  of  Bishops,  Priests,  and 
Deacons,  which  Orders  are  divinely  appointed  channels  of 
spiritual  grace  to  men  ;  a  Beersheba  in  public  prayer,  and 
praise,  and  thanksgiving,  by  which  perennial  blessings  flow 
to  devout  Christian  souls. 

Such  was  the  Church  in  primitive  times.  Such  it  was  in 
our  own  laud  at  the  beginning.  But  look  at  the  Scripture 
before  us.  The  wells  which  Isaac's  herdmen  dug  at  Gerar 
were  made  occasions  of  strife  by  other  herdsmen,  and  thence 
one  of  them  was  called  Ezeh  or  contention,  and  another  was 
called  Sitnah  or  hatred  (Gen.  xxvi.  20,  21).  In  like  manner 
there  have  been  spiritual  Ezeks  and  spiritual  Sitnahs  in  our 
own  land;  specially  was  this  the  case  in  the  times  before 
and  at  the  English  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
But  our  English  Reformers,  thank  God,  like  Isaac's  herd- 
men  who  digged  again  the  wells  which  were  digged  in  the 
days  of  Abraham  his  father,  did  a  work  of  restoration.  They 
made  no  new  Gospel,  they  made  no  new  Sacraments,  no  new 
Creed,  no  new  Order  of  Christian  Ministers.  No.  They 
reopened  and  restored  the  old  primitive  Beershebas,  and 
called  them  by  their  old  names.  And  as  we  read  in  Genesis 
that  after  the  Ezeks  and  Sitnahs  of  contention  and  hatred, 
Isaac's  herdmen  had  a  well  of  Rehoboth  or  of  enlargements 
(Gen.  xxvi.  22),  so  after  the  Ezeks  and  Sitnahs  of  the  Refor- 
mation the  Church  of  England  has  her  Rehoboths,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  wide  extension  of  the  Anglican  Communion 
in  which  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  new  Dioceses 
have  been  formed  in  our  colonies  and  dependencies,  and  in 
America,  in  less  than  one  hundred  years  before  this  time ; 
and  as  may  be  seen,  as  it  were  in  a  picture,  in  the  present 
month,2  in  the  gathering  of  a  hundred  Bishops  at  the 
Lambeth  Conference  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  from 

■  The  Lambeth  Conference  in  July,  1878 ;  at  which  100  Bishops 
were  present. 


442 


Miscellanies. 


Dioceses  which  have  been  formed  by  missionary  enlarge- 
ments of  the  English  Church. 

And  now  a  word  of  application  to  this  present  Church. 
From  the  Latin  inscription  on  the  slab  in  one  of  the  Norman 
piers  near  the  south  porch,  we  learn  that  this  Church  was 
consecrated  nearly  700  years  ago,  "  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1192,  by  Hugh,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  in  the  time  of  King 
Richard,"  namely,  Richard  the  First,  commonly  called  Coeur 
de  Lion.  That  inscription  dates  from  that  year.  I  will  not 
say  that  the  age  in  which  this  Church  was  founded  and 
consecrated  by  that  holy  and  courageous  Bishop,  was  free 
from  corruption.  No:  it  was  not;  but  this  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  affirm,  that  no  man  had  a  more  sincere  and  devout 3  love 
and  zeal  for  the  Beersheba  of  Holy  Scripture,  no  one  in 
that  age  studied  it  more  diligently,  no  one  knew  it  more 
thoroughly,  or  loved  it  more  dearly,  than  that  apostolic 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  St.  Hugh. 

His  intrepid  conduct,  tempered  with  Christian  Charity, 
derived  from  that  holy  fountain,  in  relation  to  King  Richard 
himself,  deserves  grateful  commemoration.  The  king 
demanded  English  soldiers  to  be  sent  to  him  in  France  for 
his  foreign  wars ;  and  in  a  Council  at  Oxford,  presided  over 
by  Hubert,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  each  of  the  Bishops 
of  England  was  required  to  furnish  300  men  for  that 
foreign  service.  Some  of  them  complied  with  the  request ; 
but  Hugh  rose  up  in  Council  and  said  that  at  his  consecra- 
tion in  the  Cathedral  Church  at  Lincoln,  he  had  taken  an 
oath  to  be  faithful  to  it,  and  to  maintain  its  franchises ;  one 
of  which  was  that  it  was  bound  to  supply  300  men  to  the 
king  for  military  service  in  England,  but  not  in  foreign 
parts.  He  went  over  to  France  to  justify  his  conduct 
to  King  Richard,  who  was  greatly  exasperated  against 
him,  and,  by  his  firm  and  loving  behaviour,  he  prevailed 

3  The  particulars  here  specified  concerning  St.  Hugh  are  derived  from 
the  history  of  his  life,  by  his  Chaplain,  entitled  "  Magna  Vita  S.  Hugonis 
Episcopi  Lincolniensis,"  edited  by  Rev.  J.  F.  Dimock,  Canon  of  Lincoln, 
Lond.  1864.  A  life  of  St.  Hugh  has  just  been  written  by  the  Rev.  G.  G. 
Perry,  Canon  of  Lincoln  and  Proctor  for  the  Diocese. 


St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln. 


443 


on  that  monarch,  whom  he  found  in  a  Church,  to  embrace 
him. 

But  he  did  more  than  this.  "  Thou,  0  King,"  he  said, 
taking  him  by  the  hand  and  leading  him  to  a  place  near  the 
altar,  "  art  my  parishioner ;  and  I  shall  have  to  give  an 
account  to  God  hereafter  of  the  spiritual  state  of  thy  soul,  at 
the  dreadful  day  of  doom.  I  hear  it  said  of  thee,  0  King, 
that  thou  are  not  faithful  to  thy  marriage  vow ;  and  that 
thou  for  the  sake  of  money  couferrest  Ecclesiastical  Benefices 
in  thy  royal  patronage  on  some  clergymen  who  are  not 
worthy  of  them.  I  therefore  solemnly  exhort  thee  to  re- 
pent and  amend  thy  life."  Having  thus  admonished  him, 
he  gave  the  king  his  blessing. 

After  this  interview  with  the  Bishop  in  that  church  (it 
was  at  Chateau  Gallard)  that  noble-hearted  monarch  Bichard 
said  to  his  courtiers,  "  In  good  troth,  sirs,  if  all  the  Bishops 
of  my  realm  were  like  Hugh,  no  king  or  noble  would  rise 
up  against  them."  And  he  asked  for  the  Bishop's  prayers. 
We  may  therefore  feel  sure  that  St.  Hugh  desired  that  this 
Church  of  Clee  should  be  a  Beersheba,  a  well-spring  of 
evangelic  truth. 

It  is  recorded  in  the  interesting  biography  of  him  by  his 
friend  and  chaplain,  that  he  required  the  Holy  Scriptures  to 
be  read  regularly  at  his  ordinary  meals,  and  that  Holy 
Scripture  was  his  daily  bread,  and  though  he  was  obliged 
to  be  travelling  continually  from  place  to  place  over  his  vast 
Diocese,  yet  in  his  journeys  he  never  intermitted  his  daily 
readings  of  Scripture. 

Here,  brethren,  is  a  lesson  for  us. 

From  the  solemn  day  of  the  Consecration  of  this  Church, 
to  this  joyful  day  of  its  Bestoration,  nearly  700  years  have 
passed  away,  and  in  that  time  there  have  been  fifty-four 
Bishops  of  Lincoln  in  continuous  succession.  Hci'e  then  in 
this  Church  we  see  a  happy  practical  evidence  of  the  Con- 
tinuity of  the  Church  of  England.  Here  we  may  find 
comfort  for  ourselves  in  these  restless  times.  How  many 
changes  have  taken  place  in  England  since  this  Church  of 
Clee  was  consecrated  by  St.  Hugh.  How  many  royal 
dynasties  have  been  overthrown.    The  Norman  dynasty  has 


144 


Miscellanies. 


vanished  :  the  Plantagenets  have  disappeared.  The  Houses 
of  York  and  Lancaster  have  passed  away.  The  Stuarts  are 
no  more.  But  the  Church  of  Christ  remains  unchanged. 
Christ's  Kingdom  can  never  be  destroyed.  It  remains 
established  for  Eternity.  And,  brethren,  that  Kingdom  may 
be  ours.  Here  in  this  Church  we  ourselves  have  the  same 
spiritual  Beersheba  as  our  forefathers  had.  To-day  we  have 
just  been  joining  together  in  the  profession  of  our  Christian 
Faith  in  the  same  Creed — the  Nicene  Creed — as  sounded  in 
this  Church  in  the  days  of  St.  Hugh,  nearly  seven  centuries 
ago,  and  as  sounded  throughout  Christendom  fifteen  hundred 
years  ago.  Our  Spiritual  Beershebas  in  lapse  of  ages  were 
marred  and  choked  up.  But  they  are  now  cleared,  opened, 
and  beautified,  and  sparkle  with  fresh,  pure,  living  water,  and 
charm  the  eye  and  rejoice  the  heart,  like  the  lovely  form  of 
that  sweet  child  whose  memory  this  church  recalls,  preserves, 
and  embalms.4 

Let  us  thank  God  for  these  things,  and  let  us  be  sure  that 
if  we  drink  the  living  waters  with  thirsty  hearts  which  gush 
forth  from  these  our  spiritual  Beershebas,  if  we  love  the 
refreshing  streams  of  Holy  Scripture  read  there,  and  Holy 
Sacraments  administered  there,  and  of  holy  prayers  and  holy 
praise,  which  flow  forth  from  these  fountains  and  well-springs 
of  the  Spirit,  given  us  by  our  heavenly  Father's  love ;  and  if 
we  do  not  allow  our  Beershebas  to  be  stopped  by  enemies, 
nor  to  be  tainted  with  the  infusions  of  false  doctrine,  or 
schismatical  bitterness,  or  noxious  superstitions,  then  though 
our  pilgrimage  here  below  may  be  in  a  path  through  a  vale 
of  tears,  yet  "we  shall  go  from  strength  to  strength,  and  our 
pools  will  be  filled  with  water  and  hereafter  parents  will  be 
restored  to  children,  and  children  be  restored  to  parents  for 
ever  and  ever,  and  God  will  wipe  all  tears  from  all  faces,  and 
there  will  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  for 
all  these  things  will  have  passed  away  (Rev.  xxi.  4). 

4  Anna  Muriel  Thorold,  buried  in  Clee  Churchyard,  August  24,  1876, 
aged  one  year  and  rather  more ;  daughter  of  A.  W.  Thorold  Grant 
Thorold,  of  Weelsby  House,  Esq.,  the  generous  restorer  of  Clee  Church,  to 
the  glory  of  God,  and  in  memory  of  his  dear  child. 


WELCOME  FROM  THE  ENGLISH  TO  THE  AMERICAN 

CHURCH. 


The  following  record  of  loving  spiritual  intercourse  between 
the  Churches  of  England  and  America  was  printed  at 
Lincoln  at  the  time  of  the  Lambeth  Conference  in  July, 
1878,  and  on  the  occasion  of  a  visit  to  Lincoln  by  the 
Eight  Rev.  A.  Cleveland  Coxe,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Western 
New  York,  who  preached  the  Annual  Sermon  for  S.P.Gr. 
and  S.P.C.K.  in  Lincoln  Cathedral,  on  Wednesday,  July  17, 
1878.  Bishop  Coxe  was  accompanied  by  the  Bishop  of 
Albany,  the  Right  Rev.  W.  C.  Doane,  D.D.,  and  by  the 
Bishop  of  Iowa,  the  Right  Rev.  W.  S.  Perry,  D.D.  The 
Bishop  of  Nova  Scotia,  the  Right  Rev.  H.  Binney,  D.D., 
representing  the  oldest  Colonial  See;  and  the  Bishop  of 
Ontario,  the  Right  Rev.  J.  T.  Lewis,  D.D.,  were  also 
present  in  the  City  and  Cathedral  of  Lincoln  at  the  same 
time. 

The  Christian  Faith  and  Love  of  the  Churches  of  England 
and  America,  and  their  union  in  the  sacred  bonds  of 
Christian  Doctrine,  Discipline,  and  Worship  were  symbolized 
by  a  beautiful  offering  of  an  Eucharistic  Alms-bason  from 
the  Church  of  America  to  the  Church  of  England  in  1872 
by  the  hands  of  the  late  noble-hearted  Bishop  of  Lichfield, 
George  Augustus  Selwyn,  D.D. 

The  design,  engraven  on  that  offering,  has  been 
described  in  an  American  document  as  follows  : — 

"  In  the  centre  of  the  Alms-bason  is  the  hemisphere, 
showing  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  with  the  Old  World  on 
the  East  of  it  and  the  New  World  on  the  West.  A 
scroll  on  the  ocean  bears  the  inscription,  which  expresses 


446 


Miscellanies. 


the  spirit  of  tlie  gift :  "  Orbis  veteri  novus,  oceidens  orient!, 
Filia  Main." 

In  the  upper  part  of  the  hemisphere  is  a  circular  chased 
medallion,  which  bears  a  ship,  typical  of  the  Church,  having 
the  Cross  at  its  prow,  the  Labarum  on  its  sail,  the  Pastoral 
Staff  of  the  Apostolic  Episcopate  as  its  mainmast,  upheld 
by  two  ropes  on  either  side  for  the  other  two  orders  of 
Priests  and  Deacons ;  and  the  initials  "  S.  S.,"  signifying 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  on  the  rudder. 

The  ship  is  leaving  England,  and  directs  its  course 
towards  the  New  World,  indicating  that  the  American 
Church  received  its  existence  from  the  Catholic  Church 
through  the  Church  of  England. 

Outside  of  this  hemisphere  is  a  band,  with  the  names  of 
the  six  undisputed  General  Councils,  of  the  ancient  Church. 
This  band  runs  all  round  the  globe,  signifying  the  Catho- 
licity of  the  true  Faith. 

Frcm  this  band,  on  the  outside,  spring  twelve  oak  leaves, 
and  between  them  are  twelve  twigs,  each  bearing  three 
acorns  with  burnished  kernels.  This  use  of  the  English 
oak  sets  forth  the  English  Church  growing  outwards,  and 
carrying  her  Catholicity  with  her  wherever  she  goes,  in 
every  direction.  The  twelve  is  the  number  of  Apostolic 
fulness  and  perfection,  and  the  three  is  a  reference  to  the 
docrine  of  the  Trinity. 

The  rim  bears  the  inscription,  "It  is  more  blessed  to 
give  than  to  receive."  It  begins  and  ends  at  a  jewelled 
cross,  composed  of  five  amethysts,  four  topazes,  eight  pearls, 
and  eight  small  garnets,  all  clustered  within  a  circle,  the 
cross  itself  thus  forming  a  crown  of  glory.  The  words  are 
divided  by  large  stones.  As  they  refer  to  spiritual  gifts, 
which  are  of  infinite  variety,  no  two  are  alike. 

Outside  the  inscription  is  a  bold  cable-moulding,  the 
finish  of  which  shows  that  it  is  a  three- fold  cord,  not  easily 
broken.  This  symbolizes  the  three  Orders  of  the  Apostolic 
Ministry. 

Outside  this  moulding,  again,  is  a  margin  of  leaves  all 
growing  outward,  showing  the  vigorous  outward  growth  of 
the  Church  all  the  world  over. 


The  Churches  of  England  and  Amciica.  447 


On  the  under  side  of  the  rim  is  a  plain  Latin  inscription, 
more  specifically  detailing  the  circumstances  of  the  occasion 
which  called  forth  this  gift  from  the  American  to  the 
English  Church.    It  runs  thus  : — 

"  >J«  Ecclesiaa  Anglicanaa  matri,  per  manus  Apostolicas 
reverendissimi  Georgii  Augusti  Selwyn,  Dei  gratia,  Episcopi 
Lichfieldensis,  pacis  et  benevolentiaa  internuncio  ejusdem- 
que  auctoris,  hoc  pietatis  testimonium  filii  Americani 
dederunt.  >$< " 

In  the  following  lines,  suggested  by  the  foregoing  de- 
scription, and  written  by  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  the  Church 
of  England  is  represented  as  returning  thanks  to  the 
Church  of  America,  for  this  pious  offering : — 

Quod  cara?  mittis,  carissima  Filia,  Matri 

Accipimus  sanctas  pignus  amicitiae. 
Dat  dextram  veteri  novus  Orbis ;  Nata  Parenti ; 

Miscet  et  Occiduum  Sol  Oriente  jubar. 
Pontus  Atlantiaco  quamvis  interfluat  asstu, 

Littora  velivolis  consociantur  aquis ; 
Ecce  !  Ratis  Christi  medium  translabitur  asquor, 

Alba  ferunt  Labarum  carbasa  ;  prora  Crucem. 
Funis  Apostolico  fultum  gestamine  malum 

Ordinibus  binis  junctus  utrinque  tenet ; 
Navem  per  scopulos  Oracula  Sancta  gubernant ; 

Sic  tutam  sulcat  per  maris  arva  viam  : 
Angliacos  linquit  portus  ferturque  Carina 

Americas  placido  suscipienda  sinu. 
Aspice  !  qua  medium  lancis  complectitur  orbem 

Mystica  caslatis  clara  corona  notis  ! 
Nomina  senarum  Synodorum  pristina  cerno, 

Quse  fixam  placitis  explicuere  fidem. 
Germinat  hsec  circum  quercu  diadema  Britanna  ; 

Donaque  fert  Trino  frons  duodena  Deo  : 
Multicolore  nitent  diversaa  lumine  gemmaa  ; 

Undique  sic  radians  lucet  Amore  Fides. 
Crux  zonam  gemmata  aperitque  et  claudit ;  Amoris 

Nam  Crux  principium  est,  Crux  quoquo  finis  erit. 


448 


M  iscellanies. 


Fraternis  veluti  triplex  amplexibus  orbis, 
Cuncta  Minis terium  ciugit  Apostolicuin  : 

Deniquc  ut  externo  diffusa3  in  niargine  frondes. 
Sic  Christi  Vitis  tendit  in  omne  solum. 

Ergo  Te  Genetrix,  carissima  Nata,  salutat, 

Et  pia  de  grato  pectore  vota  refert ; 
Pacis  in  aeterno  constriugat  fcedere  corda 

Cordibus  Angliacis  Americana  Deus  ! 
Una  Fides,  unus  Christcs,  nos  Spiritus  unus, 

Unus  et  Ipse  Suo  jungat  amore  Pater  ! 
Sic,  ubi  transierint  mortalia  sajcula,  Coeli 

Nos  una  accipiat  non  peritura  Domus  ! 


TRANSLATION  op  the  foregoing;  by  the  Rev. 
W.  J.  IRONS,  D.D. 

I. 

That  which  thou  sendest,  Daughter  mine,  I  as  thy  Mother 
take ; 

A  Pledge  of  Amity  Divine,  I  prize  it  for  thy  sake. 
The  New  World  greets  the  Old  to-day,  and  Child  to  Parent 
calls, 

While  from  the  Western  Sun  a  ray  of  glory  eastward  falls ; 
What  though  between  with  angry  sound  the  vex'd  Atlantic 

raves, 

In  union  still  our  coasts  are  bound,  while  vessels  skim  the 
waves. 

For  lo,  the  Bark  of  Christ  is  there,  the  mighty  deep  to 
plough, 

The  white  sails  bear  her  standard  fair,  the  Cross  is  at  her 
prow; 

Her  cordage  strong  upholds  her  mast  of  Apostolic  might ; 
And  two-fold  Orders  firm  and  fast  on  either  side  unite, 
Secure  among  the  rocks  she  glides — the  Oracles  of  light 
Through  pathless  floods  her  starry  guides — she  steers  her 
course  aright ; 


Churches  of  England  and  America.  449 


From  England's  ports  she  faced  the  sea,  and  sought  the 
distant  West, 

Welcomed,  A  merica,  by  thee,  to  peace  upon  thy  breast  ! 

II. 

Mark  how  the  sphere  that  lies  between,  shines  in  this 
diadem ; 

The  circlet  of  Thy  Gift  is  seen,  adorn'd  with  many  a  gem ; 
That  pristine  sign,  that  six- fold  name,  the  ancient  Synods 
pure, 

Engraven  there  shall  loug  proclaim  the  Faith  for  ever  sure; 
That  wreath  of  British  oak,  with  all  its  twelve  bright 

offshoots  scann'd, 
To  us  the  sacred  Twelve  recall,  the  Apostolic  band : 
Those  precious  stones  of  various  name,  with  various  colours 

bright, 

On  every  side  flash  forth  and  gleam,  like  Faith  in  Love's 
sweet  light : 

The  jewell'd  Cross  begins  and  ends  the  bright  and  sparkling 
zone, 

The  Cross,  from  whence  all  Love  descends — our  First  and 
Last  alone ! 

In  brotherhood,  all  pure  and  free,  wherever  man  is  found, 
The  Apostolic  Ministry  girdles  the  Earth  around, 
So  here,  along  the  margin's  slant,  the  fruitful  branches  stand, 
Even  as  the  Vine  which  Cueist  did  plant  shall  spread  from 
land  to  land. 

Epode. 

And  now  Thy  Mother,  Child  of  mine,  thus  greets  Thee  from 
afar ; 

Echoes  the  hope  that  such  Design  no  discord  ever  mar ! 

In  one  blest  bond  of  endless  peace,  so  may  God  bind  us  too, 

The  heart  of  loved  America,  with  England's  hearts  so  true  ! 

One  Faith,  One  Christ,  be  ever  ours,  One  Spirit  from  above, 

And  the  one  Father  over  all,  unite  us  in  His  Love  ! 

So,  when  the  ages  pass,  and  leave  things  mortal  to  decay, 

May  one  unfading  Home  receive  Our  Spirits  in  That  Day  ! 


vol.  111. 


LETTER  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 
COMMISSIONERS, 

ON  THE  ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  THEIR  INTENTION  TO  MAKE  STATUTES 
FOR  BRASENOSE  AND  LINCOLN  COLLEGES. 

As  Visitor  of  two  Colleges  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  I 
received  a  letter  from  the  Commissioners  appointed  under  the 
"University  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Act,"  1877,  inform- 
ing me  of  their  intention  to  frame  Statutes  for  those  Colleges. 
The  following  was  my  reply  to  that  communication  : — 

Riseholme,  Lincoln, 

18th  January,  1879. 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, 

I  have  the  honour  to  acknowledge  a  communication 
from  you,  dated  January  Uth  last,  in  which  you  inform  me, 
as  Visitor  of  Brasenose  College,  and  of  Lincoln  College,  in 
the  University  of  Oxford,  that  by  virtue  of  the  powers  with 
which  you  have  been  invested  by  the  "  University  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  Act,"  1877  (40  &  41  Victoria,  chapter  48), 
you  intend  to  proceed  to  make  Statutes  for  those  two 
Colleges. 

Those  two  Colleges  were  founded  by  Bishops  of  Lincoln, 
and  were  commended  by  them  to  the  care  of  their  successors 
in  the  See  of  Lincoln.  I  should  not  therefore  be  discharg- 
ing the  duties  of  the  trust  committed  to  me  with  respect  to 
them,  if  I  did  not  request  permission  to  submit  to  you  some 
remarks  concerning  those  Societies. 

Inasmuch  also  as  in  the  Act  of  Parliament,  by  which 
your  Commission  is  constituted,  it  is  provided  that  notice 
should  be  given  of  your  intention  to  frame  Statutes,  to  the 
Visitors  of  Colleges  in  Oxford,  and  you  have  now  announced 


Letter  to  Oxford  Commissioners.  45 1 


to  me  that  intention  accordingly ;  it  seems  to  be  contem- 
plated by  the  Legislature,  and  to  be  implied  in  your 
announcement,  that  the  Visitors  should  communicate  to 
you  such  observations  as  may  seem  not  unworthy  of  con- 
sideration. 

Those  two  Colleges, — as  appears  from  their  Statutes, — 
were  designed  by  their  respective  Founders  to  be  Seminaries 
of  Religion,  and  to  be  Schools  of  the  Church  of  England. 
They  were  erected  and  endowed  by  Bishops  of  the  Church 
for  the  encouragement  of  Sacred  Literature  and  of  Theo- 
logical learning;  and  for  the  training  and  maintenance  of 
persons,  either  in  Holy  Orders,  or  destined  for  Holy  Orders, 
in  the  Church. 

In  the  original  Statutes  of  Brasenose  College,  it  is  ordered, 
that  all  the  Fellows  should  be  in  Holy  Orders  within  seven 
years  after  their  admission  to  their  Master's  Degree,  or  else 
resign  their  Fellowships. 

The  Statutes  of  Lincoln  College  (even  as  revised  in  the 
year  1855)  enjoin  that  all  the  Fellows,  except  two,  should 
be  in  Holy  Orders  within  ten  years  after  their  admission  to 
a  Fellowship. 

The  Statutes  of  both  these  Colleges  prescribe  that  their 
Heads  should  be  in  Holy  Orders. 

Such,  my  Lords  and  Gentlemen,  were  the  designs  and 
injunctions  of  the  Founders  of  those  Colleges :  and  the 
Endowments  which  they  bestowed  upon  them  were  given 
in  faith  that  those  designs  and  injunctions  would  be  ful- 
filled. 

The  Endowments  formerly  provided  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  Sacred  Learning  and  Theological  Study  in  the 
Church  of  England  have  been  much  diminished  in  late  years 
by  the  sequestration  of  more  than  half  the  revenues  of  our 
Cathedrals  and  Collegiate  Churches.  It  is  indeed  to  be 
acknowledged  with  thankfulness,  that  those  Capitular 
revenues  have  not  been  secularized ;  but  have  been  applied 
to  religious  purposes,  especially  to  the  relief  of  spiritual 
destitution  in  populous  places. 

Still  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that,  from  this  and  other 
causes,  the  Church  of  England  is  now  in  danger  of  declining 

'  a  g  2 


452 


Miscellanies. 


from  the  liigh  position  which  she  held  among  the  Churches 
of  Christendom,  as  possessing  a  learned  Clergy,  well-trained 
and  qualified  to  refute  erroneous  opinions,  and  to  defend 
the  Christian  Faith,  and  also,  to  contribute  largely  to  the 
advancement  of  Literature  and  Science. 

The  Bishops  of  the  Church  have  too  much  reason  to  regret, 
from  their  own  personal  experience,  that  our  two  ancient 
Universities  do  not  now  supply  a  due  proportion  of  Candi- 
dates for  Holy  Orders,  and  that  the  average  attainments,  in 
sound  scholarship  and  theological  learning,  of  our  future 
Clergy  will  probably  be  far  below  what  is  to  be  desired. 

This  is  the  more  to  be  lamented,  because,  at  the  present 
time,  our  national  Institutions  and  our  domestic  peace  and 
happiness  are  exposed  to  peril  from  the  spread  of  Unbelief, 
and  from  the  growth  of  Romanism. 

It  would  therefore  be  a  public  calamity  to  the  Church  and 
Nation,  if  the  Endowments  of  our  Universities  and  Colleges 
were  now  to  be  more  largely  abstracted,  than  is  already 
unhappily  the  case,  from  the  purposes  to  which  their  Foun- 
ders assigned  them,  namely,  the  maintenance  of  the  Christian 
Faith,  and  the  promotion  of  Theological  Learning,  and  the 
training  of  ministers  for  the  service  of  the  Church,  and  were 
alienated  to  secular  uses,  however  excellent  in  themselves. 

Such  a  diversion  of  those  revenues  would,  I  conceive,  be 
also  very  injurious  to  our  Colleges  as  places  of  national 
Education  for  the  higher  classes  of  society. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say,  that  Heads  of  Houses,  and  Fellows 
of  Colleges  in  our  Universities,  being  Clergymen,  and  being 
bound  as  such  by  their  Ordination  Vows  to  hold  and  teach  the 
Christian  Faith,  and  to  lead  Christian  lives,  and  thus  to 
train  young  men  by  their  practice  as  well  as  by  precept, 
will  always  fulfil  those  engagements.  But  the  fact,  that  the 
principal  members  of  the  Governing  Bodies  of  our  Colleges 
have  been  in  Holy  Orders,  and  were  pledged  as  such  by 
solemn  stipulations,  has  inspired  public  confidence  in  their 
system  of  government ;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that  the 
Colleges  of  England,  as  places  of  higher  Education,  owe 
much  of  their  efficiency  and  success  to  their  connexion  with 
the  Church  of  Eugland.    And  if  that  connexion  were  severed 


On  English  Colleges.  453 

or  weakened,  English  parents  and  English  families  would,  I 
believe,  have  reason  to  rue  the  result. 

The  condition  of  other  Countries,  where  the  endowments 
of  the  Church  and  of  Academic  Corporations  have  been 
secularized,  and  where  the  University  and  Collegiate  life  is 
not  animated  by  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  may  serve  as  a 
warning  to  England. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  there  are  some  distinguished  persons 
in  our  Colleges  and  Universities,  who  would  look  on  this 
separation  from  the  Church  without  regret.  But  I  may  be 
allowed  to  observe,  that  our  Colleges  and  Universities  do  not 
exist  for  the  sake  of  any  men — or  any  set  of  men, — however 
eminent  at  any  particular  time,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
English  Nation.  All  Englishmen  have  a  vested  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  our  ancient  Colleges  and  Universities,  and  in 
the  maintenance  of  their  character  as  seminaries  of  sound 
Learning  and  religious  Education.  They  are  a  noble  heritage 
from  the  past ;  they  are  among  the  fairest  ornaments  of  our 
country ;  and  they  are  among  the  surest  pledges  of  her 
strength  and  glory  for  the  future.  And  the  essence,  I 
ventm-e  to  think,  of  their  moral  and  spiritual  life  and  vigour, 
and  even  of  their  intellectual  power  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  term,  is  their  connexion  with  Christianity. 

As  Visitor  of  one  of  the  two  Colleges,  for  which,  as  you 
inform  me,  you  are  now  about  to  frame  Statutes,  I  received 
a  communication  from  the  Governing  Body  of  that  College 
eight  years  ago,  in  which  I  was  desired  to  comply  with  the 
request  of  the  majority  of  that  Governing  Body  (a  small 
one)  that  the  particular  Statute  of  the  College  should  be 
repealed,  which  prescribes  that  the  Head  of  the  College 
should  be  in  Holy  Orders. 

I  declined  to  give  my  assent  to  that  proposal,  which  there- 
fore fell  to  the  ground.  Let  me  state  the  reasons  for  that 
refusal,  which  were  thus  expressed  in  my  answer  to  the 
application  : — "  The  Founders  of  your  College  designed  that 
it  should  be  a  religious  Society  ;  and  for  the  maintenance  of 
its  religious  character,  it  is,  I  think,  very  important  that  the 
Head  of  the  College  should  (as  is  required  by  the  Statutes) 
be  qualified  to  preach  the  Word  of  God,  and  to  administer 


454 


Miscellanies. 


the  Holy  Communion  to  those  Students  who  are  committed 
to  his  charge,  and  of  whom  he  will  have  to  give  an  account 
hereafter ;  and  that  he  should  thus  be  reminded  of  his  own 
sacred  duty  towards  them.  And  I  should  not  be  discharging 
mv  duty  aright,  as  Visitor  of  the  College,  to  its  Founders 
and  Benefactors,  and  to  the  College  itself,  and  to  those 
Parents  who  send  their  sons  to  be  educated  there,  if  I  were 
to  give  my  assent  to  a  proposal  which,  in  my  judgment, 
would  have  a  manifest  tendency  to  impair  the  character  of 
the  College  as  a  place  of  Christian  Education."  Subsequent 
reflexion  has  confirmed  me  in  the  opinions  which  I  then 
expressed,  and  I  should  feel  much  regret  if  I  had  com- 
plied with  that  request,  and  had  given  my  consent  to  that 
proposal. 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen,  in  this  and  similar  matters  my 
duty  as  Visitor'  of  those  two  Colleges  (founded  by  Bishops 
of  Lincoln  and  entrusted  by  them  to  the  care  of  their  suc- 
cessors) is  now  at  an  end.  It  has  passed  into  your  hands. 
To  you  is  committed  the  responsible  office  of  making  Sta- 
tutes for  these  two  Colleges,  which,  during  the  course  of 
centuries  since  their  foundation,  have  done  good  service  to 
the  Country  and  the  Church.  Their  future  destinies  depend 
upon  you. 

I  am  thankful  to  believe,  that  the  provisions  of  the  Legis- 
lative Statute5  under  which  you  act,  will  enable  and  encou- 
rage you  to  maintain  the  religious  character  of  these  Societies. 
The  high  character  of  the  persons,  of  whom  your  Commis- 
sion is  composed,  inspires  confident  hope  of  good  results  to 

1  The  Visitor,  concurrently  with  the  Governing  Body  of  the  Colleges, 
was  empowered,  under  certain  conditions,  to  frame  new  Statutes  for  the 
College ;  and  also  to  prevent  any  old  Statute  from  being  altered,  or  any 
new  one  from  being  made. 

2  See  the  "  Universities  Act "  (sects.  14  and  15).  "  The  Commissioners 
in  making  a  Statute  for  the  University  or  College,  shall  have  regard  to 
the  main  design  of  the  Founder,  except  where  it  has  ceased  to  be  observed 
before  the  passing  of  this  Act.  .  .  .  They  shall  have  regard  to  the 
interests  of  education,  religion,  learning,  and  research ;  and  in  the  case  of 
a  College  or  Hall  shall  have  regard  in  the  first  instance  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  College  or  Hall  for  those  purposes." 


Hopes  for  the  future.  455 


be  derived  from  it ;  and  I  earnestly  pray  that  the  Divine 
Blessing  may  rest  on  your  consultations  and  endeavours  for 
the  benefit  of  those  Institutions. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, 

With  much  respect, 
Your  obedient  and  faithful  Servant, 
C.  Lincoln, 

Visitor  of  Brasenose  and  Lincoln  Colleges,  Oxford. 


LAMBETH  CONFERENCE. 

JULY,  1878. 


The  following  Circular,  addressed  to  the  Bishops  of  the 
Anglican  Communion,  who  were  invited  to  the  Conference, 
announced  the  order  of  its  proceedings,  and  the  subjects  to 
be  considered  at  it : — 

The  Conference  will  open  on  Tuesday,  July  2nd,  at  11.0 
a.m.,  with  a  Service  in  the  Chapel  of  Lambeth  Palace,  at  which 
the  Bishops  are  requested  to  attend  in  their  Robes.  The 
Service  will  consist  of  the  Holy  Communion,  with  a  Sermon 
by  the  Archbishop  op  York  [which  has  now  been  published] . 

The  following  is  the  arrangement  of  the  subjects  and  the 
days  on  which  they  will  be  discussed  : — 

r  Subject  I. — The  best  mode  of  main- 


TUESDAY,  JULY  2nd, 
1.30  p. si. — 4.45  p.m. 


WEDNESDAY,  JULY  3rd, 
10.45  a.m. — 4.45  p.m. 


taining  union  among  the 
various  Churches  of  the 
Anglican  Communion. 
/  Subject  II. — Voluntary  Boards  of  Ar- 
bitration for  Churches  to 
which  such  an  arrange- 
ment may  be  applicable. 

Subject  III. — The  relation  to  each  other 
of  Missionary  Bishops 
and  of  Missionaries,  in 
various  branches  of  the 
Anglican  Communion, 
acting    in    the  same 


THURSDAY,  JULY  4th, 
10.45  a.m.— 4.45  p.m. 


country. 

Subject  IV. — The  position  of  Anglican 
Chaplains  and  Chap- 
laincies on  the  Conti- 
nent of  Europe  and 
elsewhere. 

Subject  V. — Modem  forms  of  Infidelity, 
and  the  best  means  of 
dealing  with  them. 


Lambeth  Conference,  1878. 


457 


FRIDAY,  JULY  5th, 
10.45  a.m. — 4.45  p.m. 


s  Subject  VI 


. — The  condition,  progress 
and  needs  of  the  various 
Churches  of  the  Angli- 
can Communion. 


The  Conference  will  open  each  day  with  Prayers  in  the  Chapel  01 
Lambeth  Palace. 

The  Conference  will  be  resumed  on  Tuesday,  July  23rd,  at  10.45  a.m., 
to  receive  and  discuss  the  Reports  of  the  various  Committees ;  and  will 
close  at  4.45  p.m.  on  Friday,  July  26th. 

On  Saturday,  July  27th,  a  closing  Service  will  be  held  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  at  11  a.m. 

[The  Sermon  was  preached  by  the  Right  Rev.  William  Bacon  Stevens, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  Bishop  of  Pennsylvania,  and  has  been  published]. 

"A  Letter  from  the  Bishops,  including  the  Reports  adopted 
by  the  Conference/'  was  subsequently  published  under 
authority. 

In  order  that  foreign  Christian  Communions  in  Eastern 
and  Western  Christendom,  might  be  made  acquainted  with 
such  resolutions  of  the  Conference  as  would  manifest  to  them 
the  true,  Scriptural,  Primitive,  and  Catholic  character  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  it  was  thought  desirable  that  they  should 
be  translated  into  Greek  and  Latin  and  circulated;  and 
accordingly  the  following  Translations  were  made  by  me 
into  those  languages,  by  command  of  His  Grace  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  the  President  of  the  Conference. 


453 


Miscellanies. 


EEIISTOAH   'EKATON  EIIISKOnQN 

Ev  AyyXta  crvvq6poi(jjJivujv,  iv  IIaAcmu>  Aa.jj.ftrjda.vii},  jx.rjVL  lovXiio, 

£T£l  ^OlOlj  (18  I  8). 


Tots  ttio'tol'5  iv  XpiaTco  'Irjcrov  ■ya'ipet.v  iv  KvpLw. 

'Hpels  ' '  ApyieTTLcrKOTTOi,  MrjTpoTTohlTai,  koX  aXXoi 
iirCcTKOTroL  ttJs  ayias  Ka.d0XiK.7js  'EKKXrjtrias,  o~vy- 
KoivtovovvTeq  b\oKkrip(ii<s  rfj  ' AyyXiKavf}  'EKKXrjala, 
eKarbv  6Vre<j  tov  apiOpbv,  aVa^Tes  iTTLCTK07Tr)v  irap- 
olklcov  i7TLT7]BevovTe<;,  rj  vofj.L[xo)<;  imo-KOTTiKa  tcXtj  iv 
avTals  iiriTeTpappivoL,  cvveXdovTes,  -roXXoi  r)p,cov 
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ITaXarta)  AapfirjOavco,  erei  Trjs  tov  KvpLov  ivcrapKco- 
creais  ja.coor\  (1878),  npoeSpevovTos  cre/3acrjuiGJTaTou 
'ApxifidXSov  KdpTr/3eXX,  ttj  6eia  Trpovo'ia'Ap^i- 
err lct kottov  KavTovaplas,  ^Ettictkottojv  0X175  'Ay- 
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elprjpivov  iraXaTLOv,  tcov  dy'icov  pvcrrqp'icov  tov  crajjuaros 
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dvrjKovTOjv  els  ti)v  tt}<;  '.E/cfcX^crias  cryicriv  iv  SiacpopoLs 
tov  Kocrpov  pipecriv. 

Ilepl  tovtcov  tcov  (pfjTrjpaTcov  o~7rouSatws  8ta  rrXeiovcov 
•qpepcov  crvpfiefiovXevKOTes,  irapaTidepeda  Tavvv  tois 
fuoTOis  ra  0~UjU.7repacTjU.ara  rjpuv  virep  avTtov  SeBoy- 
jueVa.1 

1  'Ev  ravrrj  rfj  p.era^>pa.(jei,  yZ>v  Ke<£aAa<W  ii<Xoyr]v  ireTroirjKajiev, 
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tt}s  EttiotoAtJs  ap)(iTVTT(iJ  at  twv  iTnrpo7rwv  tov  (jv/j.(3ovXiov  inGeo-eis 
(Reports  of  Committees),  dVo  tov  2?  '^ftovXiov  BoKip.aa6elaai,  oXoreXels 

evpUTKOVTOLL 


Letter  of  One  Hundred  Bishops.  459 

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Trjp7)<jiv  t^s  £v6rr)T0<;  tcov  $t.a(f)6pa)v  ttjs  r)peTepa<; 
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per  iyKapSiov  ev^apicnlas  tw  IJavTOKparopi  0ew,  tt\v 
ovcncoSr)  Kal  ivapySj  evorqra,  iv  fj  rj  'AyyXiKavr)  'Ek- 
KXrjaia,  Kal  at  oc/cX^criai  per  avTrjs  bpaTws  crvy- 
Koii>a>vovaai,&LaTe\ov(rL  crvvrjppivai-  'Hvupevaiimb  /uas 
6ela<;  Ke<f)a\y}<;,  'Irjcrov  Xpicrrov,  iv  ttj  kolvcovlo.  Trjs  pids 
KadoXiKTjs  '£/<KXr;crta5j  Kare^oucrat  ttjv  piav  iriariV, 
iv  rats  dytat?  Ipa^ais  aTTOKeKakvppivrjv ,  iv  rots  Xvp- 
/3dXois  cj  pLo-pevrjv,  Kal  virb  Trjs  dp^rjdev  'EK^r/crcas 
KeKpaTTjpivrjv,  Se^opevai  ras  auTa?  KavovLKas  Ipa<£as 
T7)<z  7raXatas  Kal  Trjs  Kaivfjs  AiaOrjKrjs,  &>s  ndvTa  Ta 
Trpbs  cro)Trjptav  dvayKaia  TtepLey^ovcra<;,  avrai  at  rjpi- 
Tepai  'jEK/cX^crtat  tov  avrbv  tov  Qeov  \6yov  Krjpvacrovcri, 
T(ov  amaiv  6e60ev  SiaTeTaypivcov  pvcrrrjpicDV  pera- 
\apfidvovcri  Sid  rrjs  virrjpeaLas  twv  avrcov  dnoaToXiKiov 
fiadpojv,  Kal  TrpoaKvvovcri  tw  amco  ®e<y  Kal  UaTepi, 
Sia  tov  avTov  Kvplov  'Irjcrov  Xpio~Tov,  iv  to>  avrco 
ayi(o  Kal  Oeico  ItvevpaTL,  irdo~i  rots  Tricnevovcriv  eVi= 
yopi)yovpivio,  irpbs  to  oSrjyetv  avrous  ets  iraaav  tijv 
d\-q0eiav. 

'ApLecrcos  pev  ovv  perd  ravnys  Trjs  evoTrjros,  vnrjp^ev 
iv  r)peTepai<;  e/c/cX^criais  iKttvr)  crvvr)6elas,  Siara^ewSj 
Kal  XtLTovpyias  Sta^opd,  r)rL<i  avayKaia  iK^verai  it; 
dcTKiqaecos  Trj<s  i^ovaCas,  Trjs  kKacrTrj  pepiKrj  r)  idviKrj 
iKKkrjcrLa  TrpoarjKovar/s^ov  Staracrcrei^,  TTapa^apdaaeLv, 
Kal  aKvpovv  Oecrpovs  Kal  reXeras  eK/cX^o-iacm/cas,  utt' 
dvOpcoTTLvrjq  i£ovarla<;  SiaTeray/AeVas,  povov  wore  iravra 
irpbs  oiKohoprjv  yiyvecrOai. 

Acrpiva)s  pev  bpoXoyovpev  p-qBeptav  elcreTL  evpi- 
o~Keo-0ai  pepCpvrjs  alriav,  8ta  TavTt]v  ttjv  hiac^oiVLav. 

OpCiiS  pivTOL   iTTLTTodr^O~ls  TtS   VZUiCTll   CTTLTToXv  alo~6ljo~€l. 

Kal  \6ya)  Tre<f)avepa)Tai,  a>s  ivvorjTea  Kal  TTpoaainia  eir) 
opyavd  nva,  irpbs  to  iKKomew,   el  tv)(oi,  d(j)oppds 


460 


Miscellanies. 


St^ocrracrta?,  /cat  irpb<;  rrjv  XapTrpoTepav  aTroSei^iv  /cat 
av^rjcriv  Trjs  dXrj$Lvrj<;  /cat  oucrtcuSous  opovoias  ev 
r)peTepai<i  e/cfcXijcrtais  vTrapyovcrrp;. 

To  Trpwrov  pev  elq  vovv  dvep-^opevov  opyavov  TOtavr^s 
iv(oo~eu)<;  euXdy&j?  cti>  eirj  iKeivo,  oirep,  dp^rjv  €)^ov  awb 
tu)v  6eo<f>6pcov  drroo-ToXcov,  crvve^ey^ev  dirdo-aq  ret? 
XpLdTOv  e/c/cX^crias  iv  pud  dStaipeYaj  /cat  6pa.Tr}  kolvojvlgl. 
'AXXd  pev  ovv  r)  avvd6poLcrL<s  dXrjOivws  OLKOvpeviKrjs 
SvvoSov,  7rpo9  biTotav  r)  ' '  AyyXtKavrj  "EKKkrjcria  navTore 
irrrjyyiXXeTo  CTolpiq  etWt  crvvipyecrdaL,  iv  Trj  crrjpepLvrj 
tov  XpLCTTLavLO-pov  KaTaaTaaeL,  Suo-ru^als  pAv,  dXXa 
(f)avepco<;,  Tre'(f)VKev  dprjyavos.  Al  pev  diropiai,  amves 
irapaKoXovOrjcreiav  dv  Trj  o~vveXevo~eL  avvoSov  e/c  TTaacov 
T(ov  dyyXiKavcov  e/c/cX^crtaif  crvyKeKpoTr)pevr)<;,  Kaiirep 
dvopoioL  /cat  peTptcLrepaL  tojv  elprjpevcov,  opus  pevToi 
elal  fiapvTepcu  rj  avy^oyprjaai  rauTT??  ttjs  peOohov,  iv 
T(o  vvv  yjpovw,  o~vvaLveo~LV.  'AXX'  r)  Treipa,  Sts  yeyovvla, 
crvpfiovXlov  eTTLCTKOTraiv,  dirb  tov  KavTovapta<;  'Ap^t- 
£7tlo~k6ttov  crvyKeKXrjpevcov,  /cat  vtt  clvtov  TrpoeSpevovTos 
o~vvrj6poLO~p(v(i)v,  iXTTLBarjpIv  Trape^eL  avTopaTOv  Xucreai? 
TrpojSXrjpaTos  p^XPL  T°v  v^v  a^-^TOV>  &7]Xov6ti  o~vv- 
adpolcrea)<;  /cat  crvp/3ovXevaea}<;  TorroTrjprjTcov  eKKXrjcriojv 
Trj  re  Secret  /cat  Trj  Stot/c^et  Sta<£e povadjv. 

'EyyvTaTa  /xera  Tr)v  evoTrjTa  iv  Trj  7rtcrret,  Trj  rots 
aytot?  dira£  TrapaSoOeiarj,  7re7retcr pivot  icrpev  rr)v 
6pr)o-K€L<x<s  KOLvwvLav  Icr^ypoTaTov  eivou  crvvSecrpov 
77po?  Tr)v  crvvaxjjLV  twv  y^piaTLavLKCov  eratptcov  /cat 
/caXai?  pepvrjpivoL  ort  to  rjpeTepov  to>v  Srjpoo~icov 
irpocrev^wv  /3t/3Xtoi>,  peTa  tlvojv  olcov  hrjiroTe  dXXot- 
a>creo)v  iv  7rdcrats  r)peTepai<;  e/c/cX^crtats  KaTe)(6pevov, 
i^aipeTov  rt  evoTr)TO<;  yeyove  <f)vXa.KTrjpiov,  vovdeTeiv 
d^iovpev  tov?  -qpeScnrovs,  6Vt  avrrj  r)  6prjcrKeLa<5  KOivcovia 
KivSvvevoL  dv  XvpaivecrdaL  St'  vTrepfioXitccov  Upovpyta? 
TrapaXXd^ewv.  'H  iau>TepiKrj  pev  twv  iKKXrjcncov  ivoTrj<; 
Taxnrj  Trj  OprjaKelas  KOiViovia,  /caucus  TreTToiOapev,  vttt)- 


Translation  of  Lambdh  Letter,  1878.  461 

pcTrjaei'  dXX'  opais,  (Katirep  ivvoovvres  ort  rota  ti<? 
dfi(f)L\a(f)rj<;  XtnovpyiKiop  TeXtTtjp  iXevOepia  alperrj  ianv, 
ota  Trdaais  rai?  poplpais  0 py~jO~  k€.vt  lkojp  alcrOrjpaTcov 
CLTToZtL^eaLV  evpv^ojpiav  av  ^apio-aiTO,)  ttjp  diro- 
aToXLKrjf  irapayyeXiap  iiTLKaXovpe0a,  "  TsdvTa  Trpb% 
oiKoSoprjp  yiyvicrQo)"  /cat  top  KaOokixov  kolvovol  eVt- 
papTvpope0a,  top  Siopi^oPTa  evTa^tap  /cat  TreiOapylav, 
xalirep  ptT  am air apprj o~ e&>s  ISlojp  7Tpoo~K\i,crea)P  /cat 
aladrjaeajp  a7ro8t8oueVa?,  d»s  xpLcrTiapiKrjs  epoTrjTos 
OepeXia,  /cat  &»?  dpayKalas  7rpb<;  avTrjs  rrjs  irtcrTeais 
PLK7)(f)6pop  VTrepdanLCTLP.  Toiyapovp  ov  Travaofxeda 
TOiavTa  pov0€TOvpt€<;  v  plv  ii<(f)a)prjo~aL  £kt€voj<;  tt]p 
e'\7rtSa,6Vt  iravTa  tojp  rjpeTepojp  iKKkrjaiojp  tckpcl,  o7rotats 
tio"u>  oSf  ^ewptat?  hiafyepoPTa,  peXXovatp  opoXoyeip 
to  KadrjKOP  tov  viroTao-o-ecrdai,  Sta  tt)^  (ivpzlhino~iP,  Ip 
0eo~pols  Kal  TeXeTats  0py]crK£VTiKai<;,  rats  efoucrtacrrt/cats 
Kpiaeo-LP  tt]<;  pepiKrjs  rj  l0PLK-q<i  eK/cX^crta?,  ^9  0e(a 
TTpopola  Tvy^dpcoo~L  KaTu>Kio~pipa'  Kal  otl  d(f)e£oPTai 
TrapTos  TrpdyuaTos  els  dXXoTpuoaip  r/  ipe0Lo~pbp 
TtiPOPTos,  Kat  oarjpepop  0eppo)<;  irpocrev^oPTai,  tVa  to 
dyiop  Ilpevpa  irdpTa.  tij<;  iKK\r/aia<s  peXrj  oS-qyfj  et?  to 
Aoyi£eo~#ai  Kat  Ipyd.t^aBai  waPTOTe  a  Set,  Kat  rjpds 
Tid^Tas  avpdiTTr)  Trj  c/uAaSeX^tKT?  eKeipy  dydirr),  tjtis 

e'errtf  awTos  elpijprjs  Kat  7rao-(op  dpercop  awheapo^. 

%  %  % 

Evj^apicnovpep  tw  TlapTOKpaTopi  0e<y,  ort  aeppo- 
Trperrrjs  Tt9  hiapapTvpia  e'^^rat  a7ro  7raVu  ttoXXcop 
iKKkrjo-Lcop,  Kat  a.7ro  kclpott]tcop  y^ptaTLapcop  kolO'oXop  top 
Koapop,  Kara  tcoi>  TT75  'Pa^tata?  nadehpas  TrXeopeKTT]- 
paTCJP,  Kal  Kam  Tcut"  pea)T€pt,K(op  BoypaTOjp,  vtt  efouctas 
avTrp;  hiwpLcrpipoiP. 

'H  'AyyXtKapr)  'EKKXrjo-ia  6rf>dXei  Traaap  o-vpTrd- 
Oetap  eKKX^crtat?  kolpy),  Kal  ^ptoTtafots  tSta,  81a- 
papTvpoptPOL*;  Kara.  toutcd^  TrXaprjpdTojp,  Kal  aTepo- 
yo)povpepoL<i,  €t  ti^oi,  1177'  dnopLcop  ££dXXa>p,  8tct  tow 


462 


Miscellanies. 


Trjs  a7rtcrTta9  TrpocrfioXuv,  qpa  /cat  Std  rdv  T779  'Pwp5 

iTTL^LprjflOLTCOV. 

Hpets  opoXoyovpev  eVa  povov  MeaiTrjv  deov  /cat 
avOpuTTOiv,  *  AvOpomov  'Irjcjovv  XpiaTov,  09  iariv  iwl 
TrdvTOJV  0eo?  euXoy^ros  et?  tous  ataii/a?.  'ArroOovpeOa, 
a>5  ivavTiov  rats  rpa<£ats  /cat  T17  KaOoXiKr)  dXrjOeia.,  tto.v 
otlovv  Boypa,  6Vep  /ca^iaTaVai  d'XXous  pecri/ras  dvr' 
'Ek€lvov  ToXprjcreiev  av,  rj  dc^atpetf  ortow  euro  T779  #eta<? 
peyaXetor^ros  toG  irXrjpcopaTO^  ttjs  OeorrjTOS  Iv  Avt(o 

KCLTOLKOVVTOS,  K0.1  TL/JLT/V  CLTTeipOV  TTapi)(OVTO<;  TTj  dpcopcp 

iKeivr)  Ovcrla,  tjj  aVa£  V7r'  -4utou  iWep  tov  oXov  tov 
KocrjJLOV  apapTLcov  eVt  aravpov  Trpoaeve^deLay]^. 

Xpeoxrrovpev  ovi>  vovOereiu  rov<s  7rto"Tou?,  to  epyov 
6  /caTeipyacrrat  6  T779  'Pcopr^  e7rto~/co7T09  eret  1870 
eV  T77  BaTLKavfj  crvvoBco,  8t'  o5  VTrepo^rj^  dvTeTroirj- 
craro  vnep  ttolptcdv  avdpcLirwv,  r~qv  re  tt'lcttlv  /cat  tol 
yjdrj,  eVt  7rpocr^/xaTt  a.7rXaz^o-tas  eavrw  e\£ap- 
TracrOeio-qs,  eVep/Sacrtz'  yeyovevai  tojv  d^Lcopdrcov  rep 
KvpLco  'Iricrov  XpMTTui  TrpocrrjKovTcov. 

Tvcxipipoi  TTOLcrlv  elcriv  01  Kavoves,  /ca(9'  ous  17  '-4y- 
y\iKavrj  '  EkkXtjctlcl  kavrrjv  peTeppvOpicrev.  'Ava- 
K-qpvTTopev  tt)v  avTapKeiav  /cat  rrjv  virepo^v  tcjv 
iepuv  rpa(f)a)V}  oj<s  6pLO~TiKr)v  m'crreci)?  cndOprjv,  /cat 
tco  rjperepci)  Xaw  irapayyeXXopev  crirovSaLav  avTOJV 
peXeTV/V  rrjv  ttlcttlv  r)pa)v  rat9  Tciif  dp^aLOJv  SvpfioXajv 
<j)covaL<;  opoXoyovpev  to  glttoo-toXikov  jdypa  'Ettl- 
crKOTThiv,  IIpeo-(3vT€pa)i>  /cat  AiaKovwv  KaTe^opev  rrjv 
ivvopov  iXevdeplav  pepLKcou  77  IOvlkuw  e/c/cX>ia"t<yi'  Sta- 
j3ef3aLOvpe0a'  tu>  XacG  rjpcov  ey^eipL^opev,  Iv  Trj  iy- 
Xojpicp  avTov  StaXe/crw,  /3t/3Xtof  Trpocrev^cjv  SrjpoaCcjv 
/cat  reXeTaw,  /cat  toji>  pvo~rr\pl(j}v  tepoupytas,  Kara  to, 
dptcrra  /cat  7raXatoTara  ^ptcrrta^tK^s  Trtcrreaj?  /cat 
Xarpeta?  dp-^eTvira. 

Tavra  ret  rjpwv  paprvpripara  ivcoiriov  Trjs  ot/coup.eVrjs 


Translation  of  Lambeth  Letter.  463 
avaTTTvcrcreTai,  ytyvoJCTKopeva  /cat  dvayiyvcocrKoiieva  wo 

7T<XVT0)V  avdpiOTTOlV. 

'AcrjjLCvojs  ovv  a.(nral,6[xe0a  rrdoav  rretpav  perap- 
pvOpiaeux;  Kara  to  TTapdSeiyfxa  7779  ap^ata?  e/c/cXricrtas- 
arepedv  ravrorrrra  ovk  diraLrovpev'  afco^eXets  ot^o- 
(TTacrta?  rrapairovpeda'  ttolulv  rot?  Trpbs  rjjxas  i(f>eX- 
Kop.4voL<;  iv  ra)  iirv^eLpetv  eaurou?  iXevOspaxrau  oltto 
C,vyoi>  rrXdvr)<;  /cat  Seto-iSai/iotaa?  rrdcrav  fiorjOeiav 
7rpo6vpojs  irporeivopev,  /cat  ota  eaurots  rrpovopia  elrj 
dpeard,  Kal  rjperepois  kclvoctiv,  rots  iv  r)[xeripaL<; 
hiaTVTTaxrecriv  coptcr/xeVot?,  crvpffxova,  iOeXovrws  vpo- 
Kopiippev . 

s&  ^  * 

Ilepi  tcov  ^rjrrjfxdrcov  rjplv  7rapare6evro)v  virep  rcov 
rov  rd/xov  vopcjv  ip(j)avi^opev,  oti  ras  curoptas  €ttl- 
yiyvdxTKOVT^,  iv  at?  eVtat  e/c/cAriTtat  ipTrXeKOvrai,  Stct 
Ta;^  Oeapwv  rrj<;  roTTLKrjs  vofxodecrlas,  vapi£,opev  6Vt  Set 
rraaav  e/c/cXricrtav,  Kara  rrjv  iavrrjs  yvcoprjv,  rrjv  rov 
Fdpov  dyuocrvvrjv  hiafyvXdrrtiv,  Kara  ra  iv  rco  prjpari 
rov  Qeov  opio-Qivra,  /cat  KaQd  r)  rov  Xpio-rov  'EKKXrjata 
p£\pi<  T0^  v**v  TavTa  oVSe/crat. 

Avadecopovvrts  tous  Xvypovs  StaXoytcr/Moi'?,  7rept 
rekeriov  iKKXrjo-LaariKcjv,  St'  coy  IVta  rail'  rjperepcov 
rr\rj6rj  yaXe.TT(o<;  reOopvfirjvrai,  SiafieftaiovpeOa  rov 
Kavova,  bpiCpvra  prjSev  Seu>  veajrepi^eiv,  iv  rrj  eldLcrpevr) 
6pr)o~K€La<;  Stara^et,  Kara  rrjs  rov  €7rtcr/co7rou  vovde- 
crta?. 

Aoirrbv  ivdvpovpevoi  Katvoroptaq  rivds,  rrj  re  rrpd^ei 
Kal  rrj  SiSa^,  irepl  rrjs  i^opoXoyrjcrew;,  Sucr)(vpL^6pe6a, 
ra.?  rrjs  'AyyXcKavrjs  KOivuvias  '.E/c/cXricrta?  Kpareiv 
/3e/3auiJ5  rou?  Kavovas  rrepl  rrjs  i^opoXoyrjo~€0)<;  iv  rat? 
ctytats  rpa(j>ai<;  aTroSeSeiypivovs,  /cat  vtto  rrjs  ap^ata? 
'E/c/cXricrtag  crvvcjpoXoyrjpevov;,  Kal  iv  rrj  'AyyXiKrj 
MerappvOpiau  avaKCKaivajpevovs'   Kal  io~Keppiva)<i  iy- 


464 


Miscellanies. 


vwKafxtv,  prjStvl  Trjs  c/ckX^ctuis  vTrrjperr)  i^elvai  airandv 
ix  ruiv  77-/30?  avTov  (J)oltcovtojv,  Std  ttjv  rrjs  olvtojv  Xvir-qs 
avdinv^iv,  dnao-cov  tojv  dpapTLwv  Kara  /xe'po?  ixdaTcov 
i^apidixrjCTLV,  i)  Ihiav  i^opoXoyrjaLV  iKfSacro.vil.eiv,  irpb 
rrjs  dyta?  eu^apta"Tta?  peTaXrjxjjea)^,  i)  eVtTacrcreti' i)  Kat 
irapaiveiv  tt)v  Trjs  crvvrj9ov<;  rw  tepee  i^opoXoyijaeajq 
eVtTTjSei'crif ,  77  StSdcrKeti>  on  rota  e'TrtT^Sei/crt?,  ^  to 
viroTOLcraecrdai.  ttj  ouraicrt  KaXovpivrj  tepe'aj?  )(etpayo>yta, 
dvayKald  iaTL  irpoira.Loevp.aTa  Trpb?  t^v  ttJ?  dvo)rdTrj<s 
77 vevjxaTLKTj<i  £0177?  eVt/Sacr  tf .  'Opus  pivroL  ovSapcos 
ivvoovpev  iunip.vf.iv  tt)v  iv  rfj  /3t/3Xa>  to>v  Srjpoaicov 
rrpoaev^cov,  npbs  tov  fie/3ap7)piv(ov  avvcLh-qaeojv  eVt- 
KOV(f)iapbv,  iiTL^opr/yLav  Trpovevorjpivrjv. 

Tavrd  iaTL  ret  avpirepdapara.  ei?  a.  KarrjVT7]Kapev, 
rrepl  tojv  rjplv  TrpofiefiXripivcov  £,r)T7]pd.Tcov,  iv  015  to. 
Trdvrcov  tt]<;  KaOoXiKrjs  'EKKXr/alas  tIkvuv  drrropeva 
rat?  o"wdSot?  iKKhrjcriuv,  Kat  Tat?  e'^ovcrtat?  Ka#' 
ixdaTrjv  Kv(3epv7)TLKaL<;,  /cat  rrdaLV  0.77X019  Tot?  TTtcrTOt? 
eV  Xpicna)  'Irjcrov  ^uXoc^poVo)?  cra^rjVL^opev. 

Ovk  dvTLiroLovpeOa  tov  KdTaKvpLtveLV  iv  kXti^oi?, 
dXXa  TauTa  to>  rjperiph)  avpfiovXico  dpicravTa  avv- 
iarapev  tw  XoyLapco  Kat  ttj  crwetOT^crei  tow  dSeX^wv, 
a>?  V7TO  tou  dytou  IIvevp.a.TO<;  Tre^ojTLapivuiv,  eVre^aj? 
Geo)  TTpoaev^opevoL,  Iva  rrdvres  ot  to  ovopa.  tov  Kvpiov 
iiTLKaXovpevoi,  p.ia  yvcoprj  Kat  /u.ta  kolvqjvlcl  rjvcopivoi, 
ty)v  ttlcttlv  TTjv  dira£  Tot?  dytot?  rrapa'ooda.aav  /3e/3ata>? 
KpaTwaLV,  KO.I  to!  eVt  avTOJV  Kvplco  iv  kv\  d(f)0apo~ia<; 
Kat  dydirrjs  irveupaTL  XarpevoiaLv.  'Aprjv. 

'TTriypaxfta  iv  t<£  ovopaTL  tov  avpfiovXiov, 

APXIBAAAOS  KAMIIBEAA, 

O  Karrorapias  i\p-^i€Tri(jKoiTo<;. 


Translation  of  Lambeth  Letter,  1878.  465 


EPISTOLA  CENTUM  EPISCOPORUM 

IN  ANGLIA  CONGREGATORUM,  IN  PALATIO  LAMBETH  AN<>, 
MENSE  JULIO,  ANNO  SALUTIS  MDCCCLXXVIII. 


Fidelibus  in  Christo  salutem  in  Domino. 

Nos  Archiepiscopi,  Metropolitan^  aliique  Episcopi 
Sanctse  Catholicas  Ecclesia3,  centum  numero,  cum 
Ecclesia  Anglicana  plenarie  communicantes,  universi 
super  Diceceses  jurisdictionem  Episcopalem  exer- 
citantes,  vel  ad  Episcopalia  munia  in  eis  obeunda 
legitime  delegati,  multi  nostrum  ex  remotissimis 
orbis  terrarum  regionibus,  congregati  in  Palatio 
Lambethano,  anno  salutis  mdccclxxviii.  prassidente 
Reverendissimo  Praasule  Archibaldo  Campbell,  Divina 
Providentia  Archiepiscopo  Cantuariensi,  totius  An- 
glias  Primate,  participes  facti,  in  dicti  Palatii  sacello, 
Sacrosanctorum  Mysteriorum  Corporis  et  Sanguinis 
Domini  Nostri  Jesu  Christi,  et  orationibus  adunati 
ad  Spiritus  Sancti  directionem  impetrandam,  de 
variis  pra3finitis  quasstionibus  consilium  inivimus 
coetui  nostro  propositis,  ad  statum  Ecclesiaa  perti- 
nentibus  per  diversas  mundi  partes  diffusse. 

His  qusestionibus  serid  deliberandis  complures 
dies  impendimus,  jamque  determinationes  earum  a 
nobis  approbatas  fidelibus  in  Christo  commendamus.1 

1  In  hac  Latina  interpretatione  eorum  capitulorum  prsecipue 
dclectum  fecimus  quce  ad  Ecclesiam  Universalem  attinere  quodam- 
modo  videbantuv.  In  Anglico  autem  archetypo  Relationes 
Delegationum  (Reports  of  Committees),  a  Ccetu  comprobatae, 
plenariae  rcperiuntur. 

VOL.  III.  h  h 


466 


Miscellanies. 


Qua?  sit  optima  ratio  pensitantes  imitatis  con- 
servanda?  inter  varias  nostra?  Communionis  Ec- 
clesias,  primum  omnium  Deo  Omnipotenti  gratias 
agentes  quam  maximas,  manifestam  unitatem  ag- 
noscimus,  qua  Ecclesia  Anglicana,  et  Ecclesia?  cum 
ilia  visibiliter  communicantes,  jugiter  connexa?  per- 
manserunt. 

Conjuncta?  invicem  sub  Uno  Divino  Capite,  Jesu 
Christo,  in  unius  Catholica?  et  Apostolica?  Ecclesia? 
societate,  nrmiter  tenentes  unam  Fidem,  in  Verbo 
Dei  revelatam,  Symbolis  definitam,  et  a  Primitiva 
Ecclesia  constanter  conservatam,  easdem  Canonicas 
Scripturas  Veteris  et  Novi  Testamenti  recipientes, 
utpote  omnia  continentes  ad  salutem  sempiternam 
necessaria,  ha?  nostra?  Ecclesia?  eundem  Dei  Ser- 
monem  praedicant,  eorundem  Sacramentorum,  di- 
vinitus  institutorum,  per  eorundem  ordinum  Apos- 
tolicorum  ministerium  dispensatorum,participes  sunt, 
et  Eundem  Deum  et  Patreni  venerantur,  per  Eundem 
Dominum  Jesum  Christum,  in  Eodem  Spiritu  Sancto 
super  omnibus  fidelibus  efFuso  ad  ducendos  eos  in 
omnem  veritatem. 

Veriim  enimvero  cum  liac  unitate  consociata 
nunquam  non  extitit  ea  consuetudinum,  disciplina? 
et  rituum  varietas,  qua?  ab  ilia  pra?rogatiya  enasci 
solet,  quam  qua?vis  Ecclesia  particularis,  sive  na- 
tionalis,  jure  sibi  vindicat ;  scilicet  constituendi, 
immutandi,  atque  abrogandi  caerimonias  vel  ritus 
Ecclesiasticos,  liumana  tantum  auctoritate  ordinatos, 
modo  omnia  ad  a?dificationem  fiant. 

Libenter  quidem  profitemur,  nullam  reveni  etiam- 
num  sollicitudinis  causam  in  hac  diversitate  reperiri. 
Constat  autem,  votum  aliquorum  animis  nuper  con- 
ceptum  vocibus  quoque  passim  significatum  fuisse, 


Translation  of  Lambeth  Letter,  1878.  467 

hoc  prassertim  intuitu,  ut  rationes  qusedam  actu 
efficaces  a  nobis  adhibeantur,  ad  occasiones  discordias 
prascidendas,  et  ad  illam  genuinam  et  essentialem 
unitatem,  quaa  nostras  Ecclesias  indies  super- 
crescentes  complectitur,manifestandam  ampliusatque 
fovendam. 

Primum  quidem  liujus  concordias  tuendas  ilia  in 
mentem  venit  ratio,  qua?  inde  ab  Apostolis  ipsis 
divinitus  inspiratis  originem  ducens,  Ecclesiis  omni- 
bus in  eadem  individua  et  visibili  unitate  continendis 
diu  inserviit.  Hodierna  autem  rei  Christianas  ea  est 
conditio,  infausta  quidem  sed  manifesta,  ut  Concilium 
vere  (Ecumenicum,  ad  quod  Ecclesia  Anglicana  se 
paratam  esse  convenire  semper  professa  est,  con- 
vocari  non  possit.  Difficultates  quidem  qua?  im- 
pedimento  sunt  quominus  Synodus  ex  omnibus 
Anglicanis  Ecclesiis  conflata  congregetur,  re  diversas 
et  minus  graves,  nimias  tamen  nobis  videntur,  quam  ut 
ilia  ratio  unitatis  conservandge  a  nobis  commendetur. 

Aliud  autem  experimentum,  secunda  jam  vice 
factum,  congregatio  scilicet  Episcoporum  ab  Archi- 
episcopo  Cantuariensi  convocatorum,  et  Eo  pras- 
sidente  deliberantium,  spem  saltern  suppeditat,  quass- 
tionem,  quas  hactenus  insolubilis  videbatur,  rerum 
vicissitudine  divinitus  ordinata.  sponte  solutum  iri, 
ita  ut  Procuratores  Ecclesiarum,  situ  et  adminis- 
tratione  diversarum,  consultandi  invicem  causa,  in 
unum  coetum  coalescant. 

Persuasum  est  nobis,  ad  unitatem  in  fide  semel 
Sanctis  tradita.  proxime  accedere  divini  cultus  com- 
munionem,  eamque  societates  Christianas  firmissmo 
nexu  copulare  :  et  probe  recordantes  Librum  Precum 
Communium,  ab  omnibus  nostris  Ecclesiis,  aliqua- 
tenus  variatum,  retineri,  et  eximium  unitatis  vin- 

h  h  2 


468 


Miscellanies. 


culum  extitissc,fratres  nostros  admonendoscensemus, 
divini  cultus  communionem  immoderatis  rituum 
diversitatibus  in  discrimen  posse  adduci.  Intrin- 
secani  Ecclesiarum  variarum  unitatem  custodiendse 
earum  concordiaB  adjumentum  allaturam  esse  vali- 
dissimuni  confidimus.  Et  dum  libere  profitemur, 
amplam  quandam  rituum  Ecclesiasticorum  flexibili- 
tatem  esse  exoptandam,  quippe  quae  latum  quasi 
campum  patefaciat  legitimis  piorum  affectuum  signi- 
ficationibus,  nihilominus  ad  Apostolicum  praeceptum 
provocamus,  "  Omnia  ad  asdificationem  fiant,"  et  ad 
illam  Ecclesias  Catholica3  legem  principalem,  rectum 
ordinem  commendantis  atque  obedientiam,  etsi  cum 
privatorum  sensuum  et  propensionum  abnegatione 
conjungantur,  tanquam  subsidia  Christiana?  Unitatis 
fundamentalia,  imo  etiam  ad  fidem  ipsam  efficaciter 
conservandam  necessaria. 

Nolumus  huic  argumento  finem  imponere,  quin 
spem  nostram  serib  testificemur,  omnes  Ecclesiaa 
fideles  agnituros  fore,  utcunque  studiis  in  varia 
inclinantes,  universos  oportere  subjici,  conscientias 
ergo,  in  rebus  ad  ritus  et  casrimonias  attinentibus, 
judiciis  illis  auctoritatem  obtinentibus,  quoa  ab  ilia 
Ecclesia.  particulari  vel  nationali  promulgata  sint, 
sub  cujus  tutela,  Dei  providentia,  sint  constituti; 
et  sibi  sedulo  temperaturos  ab  omni  qualicunque 
alienationis  vel  exacerbationis  occasione ;  et  quotidie 
Deum  enixe  obsecraturos,  ut  omnia  Ecclesise  membra 
a  Spiritu  Sancto  dirigantur  ad  qua3cunque  recta 
sint  excogitanda  atque  exequenda;  et  utnos  universi 
in  ilia  fraterna.  dilectione,  qua?  pacis  est  ipsissimum 

vinculum  et  omnium  virtutum,  adunare  dignetur. 

#  *  *  * 

Gratias  agimus  Deo  Omnipotent  maximas,  eo  quod 


Letter  of  Lambeth  Conference,  187S.  469 

protestationes  solenncs  a  totEcclesiis  et  societatibus 
Christianis  per  orbem  terrarum  protectee  sint  contra 
sedis  Re-mange  nsurpationes,  et  contra  novicia  dog- 
mata ejus  auctoritate  promulgata. 

Affectuum  benevolorum  significatio  debetur  ab 
Ecclesia  Anglicana  universis,  sive  Ecclesiis,  sive 
singulis,  contra  hos  errores  protestantibus,  quippo 
qui  difficultatibus  forsitan  laborent  specialibus,  quum 
propter  Incredulitatis  incursiones,  turn  vero  propter 
Romance  sedis  arrogantiam. 

Nos  confitemur  Unum  tantum  "  Mediatorem  Dei 
et  hominum,  Hominem  Jesum  Christum,"  "  Qui  est 
super  omnia  Deus  in  srecula."  Nos  repudiamus, 
utpote  Scripturis  Sacris  et  Catkolicse  veritati  ad- 
versantem,  qualemcunque  doctrinam  alios  mediatores 
Ejus  vice  constituentem,  vel  aliquatenus  detrahentem 
ab  Illius  Divina.  Majestate,  et  a  plenitudine  Deitatis 
in  Illo  inhabitants,  quae  immaculato  illo  Sacrificio, 
semel  ab  Eo  in  Cruce  propter  omnium  hominum 
peccata  oblato,  infinitum  pretium  impertita  est. 

Commonendi  igitur  sunt  a  nobis  fideles,  facinus 
illud  a  Romano  Episcopo  patratum,  in  Concilio 
Vaticano,  anno  aidccolxx.,  quo  sibi  supereminentiam 
super  omnes  homines  in  rebus  fidei  et  morum 
vindicavit,  arrogata?  sibi  Infallibilitatis  praatextu, 
attributorum  Ipsius  Domini  Nostri  Jesu  Christi 
manifestam  fuisse  invasionem. 

Innotuerunt  omnibus  regulae  illaa  fundamentales, 
juxta  quas  Ecclesia  Anglicana  seipsam  reformavit. 
Nos  Sanctas  Scripturas  sufficientem  et  supremam 
fidei  regulam  esse  declaramus,  et  omnibus  nostris 
diligenter  scrutandas  proponimus.  Nos fidem nostram 
ipsis  Syrnbolorum  antiquorum  vocibus  profitemur. 
Nos  Apostolicum  ordinem  Episcoporum,  Presbyte- 


47o 


Miscellanies. 


rorum  et  Diaconorum  retinemus.  Ecclesiaruin  par- 
ticularium  sive  natioualium  libertates  legitimas 
asserimus.  Nos  Librum  Communium  Precationum, 
necnon  Adininistrationis  Sacramentorum,  populis 
nostris  in  inanus  damns,  vernaculo  eorum  sermone 
compositum,  et  juxta  optima  et  antiquissima  fidei 
et  divini  cultus  exemplaria  adornatum.  Orbi  uni- 
verso  patefacta  sunt  krec  nostra  documenta ;  sciuntur 
et  leguntur  ab  omnibus. 

Libenter  igitur  amplectimur  universos  sese  re- 
formandi  studiosos  ad  amussim  Ecclesise  primitivse. 
Rigidam  Uniformitatem  non  flagitamus ;  superva- 
caneas  dissensiones  deprecaruur.  Omnibus  ad  nos 
allectis,  dum  jugum  erroris  et  superstitionis  excutere 
moliuntur,  commodare  operam  nostram  parati 
sumus,  et  talia  eis  subministrare  privilegia,  qualia 
ipsis  possint  esse  gratiosa,  et  nostris  ipsorum  insti- 
tutis  et  formulis  Ecclesiasticis  consentanea. 

%  5fc  4i* 

Sed  hsec  hactenus.  Quod  ad  qurestiones  attinet 
nobis  propositas  quse  leges  Matrimonii  tangunt,  dum 
ex  animo  agnoscimus  angustias,  ad  quas  nonnullas 
nostra?  Ecclesias  a  popularium  suorum  legum  latio- 
nibus  redactae  sunt,  censemus  quoque  officium  esse 
uniuscujusque  Ecclesia?  operam  dare,  ut  sanctitati 
Matrimonii  custodiendas  consulatur,  secundum  man- 
data  in  Dei  Verbo  proescripta,  et  quemadmodum  ab 
Ecclesia  Christi  hactenus  sunt  recepta. 

Rixas  quasdam  luctuosas  de  rituum  Ecclesiasti- 
corum  quasstionibus,  considerantes,  quibus  nonnullas 
nostras  congregationes  graviter  perturbatse  sunt,  nos 
affirmamus,  nihil  in  diu  usitata  casriinoniarum  con- 
suetudine,  contra  Episcopi  admonitionem,  debere 
innovari. 


Letter  of  Lambeth  Conference. 


471 


Denique,  nonnullas  novitates,  quum  in  agendo 
turn  in  docendo,  quod  ad  Confessionem  attinet,  con- 
templantes,  nos  declaramus  Anglicana3  Communionis 
Ecclesias  firmiter  eas  leges  tenere,  quae  in  hanc  rem 
in  Sacris  Scripturis  sunt  promulgate,  primitiva3 
Ecclesias  professione  sancitas,  et  ab  Anglicana  Refor- 
matione  instauratas.  Et  nos  consulto  censemus, 
nulli  Ecclesias  Ministro  licere,  ab  iis,  qui  ad  eum  se 
recipiunt,  doloris  aperiendi  gratia,  omnium  sigillatim 
peccatorum  minutam  enumerationem  exquirere ;  vel 
privatam  confessionem  iis  imperare,  ante  Sacro- 
sanctas  Eucharistias  participationem ;  vel  prasscribere, 
vel  etiam  commendare,  confessionis  consuetudi- 
narias  coram  sacerdote  exercitationem ;  vel  docere 
talem  exercitationem,  vel  sacerdoti  subjectiouem, 
directionis,  ut  aiunt,  causa,  conditiones  esse  neces- 
sarias,  ad  sublimissimam  vitam  spiritualem  attiu- 
gendam.  Nihilominus  non  in  animo  habemus  quo- 
quam  modo  terminos  imponere  subsidiis,  quae  in  Libro 
nostro  Precum  Publicarum,  ad  conscientiarum  solli- 
citarum  sublevationem,  provide  submiDistrantur. 

Ha3  sunt  determinationes  quasstionum  nobis  pro- 
positarum,  quatenus  Ecclesias  Universalis  vel  Ec- 
clesiarum  nostrarum  conditionem  attingere  vide- 
bantur. 

Ad  base  inspicienda  varias  Ecclesiarum  Synodos, 
aliosque  in  eis  Ecclesiis  auctoritatem  exercitantes,  et 
universos  denique  Christi  fideles,  per  orbem  terrarum 
invitamus.  Dominationem  in  cleris  non  affectamus; 
sed  has  determinationes,  a  ccetu  nostro  approbatas, 
rationi  et  conscientias  fratrum  nostrorum,  utpote  a 
Spiritu  Sancto  illuminatorum,  commendamus,  enixe 
Deum  apprecantes,  ut  omnes  ubique  gentium  Doinini 
Nostri  Jesu  Christi  Nomen  invocantes,  una  mente 


472 


Miscellanies. 


consocientur,  in  una,  Communione  conjungantur,unam 
fidem  semol  Sanctis  traditam  firmiter  comploctantur, 
ct  unum  Suum  Dominum  in  uno  puritatis  et 
dilectionis  spiritu  venerentur.  Amen. 

Subscripsi,  in  nomine  Ccetus  Lambethani, 

ARCHIB  ALDUS  CAMPBELL, 

Arcliiepiseopus  Cnntuariensis. 


Archiepiscopi,  Metropolitan^  aliique  Episcopi,  qui 
Goetui  Lambetliano  adfuerunt. 


The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
The  Archbishop  of  York. 
The  Archbishop  of  Armagh. 
The  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 

The  Bishop  of  London. 

The  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

The  Bishop  of  Llandaff. 

The  Bishop  of  Ripon. 

The  Bishop  of  Norwich. 

The  Bishop  of  Bangor. 

The  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and 

Bristol. 
The  Bishop  of  Chester. 
The  Bishop  of  St.  Albans. 
The  Bishop  of  Hereford. 
The  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 
The  Bishop  of  Lincoln. 
The  Bishop  of  Salisbury. 
The  Bishop  of  Carlisle. 
The  Bishop  of  Exeter. 
The  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells. 
The  Bishop  of  Oxford. 
The  Bishop  of  Manchester. 
The  Bishop  of  Chichester. 
The  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph. 
The  Bishop  of  Ely. 
The  Bishop  of  St.  David's. 


The  Bishop  of  Truro. 
The  Bishop  of  Rochester. 
The  Bishop  of  Lichfield. 
The  Bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man. 

The  Bishop  of  Meath. 
The  Bishop  of  Down. 
The  Bishop  of  Killaloe. 
The  Bishop  of  Limerick. 
The  Bishop  of  Derry. 
The  Bishop  of  Cashel. 
The  Bishop  of  Ossory. 

The  Bishop  of  Moray.  Primus. 
The  Bishop  of  St.  Andrew's. 
The  Bishop  of  Edinburgh. 
The  Bishop  of  Aberdeen. 
The  Bishop  of  Glasgow. 
The  Bishop  of  Brechin. 
The  Bishop  of  Argyll. 

The  Bishop  of  Delaware. 
The  Bishop  of  New  York. 
The  Bishop  of  Ohio. 
The  Bishop  of  Pennsylvania. 
The  Bishop  of  Western  New 
York. 

The  Bishop  of  Nebraska. 
The  Bishop  of  Pittsburgh. 


Archbishops  and  Bishops  at  Lambeth  Conference.  473 


The  Bishop  of  Louisiana. 

The  Bishop  of  Missouri. 

The  Bishop  of  Long  Island. 

The  Bishop  of  Albany. 

The  Bishop  of  Central  Penn- 
sylvania. 

The  Assistant  Bishop  of  North 
Carolina. 

The  Bishop  of  New  Jersey. 

The  Bishop  of  Wisconsin. 

The  Bishop  of  Iowa. 

The  Bishop  of  Colorado. 

The  Bishop  of  Haiti. 
The  Bishop  of  Shanghai. 

The  Bishop  of  Montreal.  Me- 
tropolitan. 
The  Bishop  of  Fredericton. 
The  Bishop  of  Nova  Scotia. 
The  Bishop  of  Ontario. 
The  Bishop  of  Huron. 
The  Bishop  of  Toronto. 
The  Bishop  of  Niagara. 

The  Bishop  of  Madras. 
The  Bishop  of  Colombo. 
The  Bishop  of  Bombay. 

The  Bishop  of  Guiana. 
The  Bishop  of  Kingston. 
The  Bishop  of  Antigua. 
The  Bishop  of  Barbados. 
The  Bishop  of  Nassau. 


The  Bishop  of  Sydney.  Metro- 
politan. 
The  Bishop  of  Adelaide. 
The  Bishop  of  North  Queensland. 

The   Bishop    of  Christchurch. 

Metropolitan. 
The  Bishop  of  Dunedin. 

The  Bishop  of  Gibraltar. 

The  Bishop  of  Capetown.  Me- 
tropolitan. 
The  Bishop  of  St.  Helena. 
The  Bishop  of  Maritzburgh. 
The  Bishop  of  Bloemfontein. 
The  Bishop  of  Pretoria. 

The    Bishop    of  Rupertsland. 

Metropolitan. 
The  Bishop  of  British  Columbia. 
The  Bishop  of  Saskatchewan. 

The  Bishop  of  the  Falkland 
Islands. 

The  Bishop  Suffragan  of  Dover. 
The  Bishop  Suffragan  of  Guild- 
ford. 

The  Bishop  Suffragan  of  Not- 
tingham. 
Bishop  Perry. 
Bishop  McDougall. 
Bishop  Ryan. 
Bishop  Claughton. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CONFERENCE. 

The  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol,  Secretary  of  the  Conference. 
The  Bishop  of  Edinburgh,  Secretary  of  Committees. 
Isambard  Brunei,  D.C.L.,  Chancellor  of  the  Diocese  of  Ely, 
Assistant  Secretary. 


474 


Miscellanies. 


The  followingis  theEnglish  Original  of  those  portionswhich 
are  contained  in  the  above  Translations  into  Greek  and  Latin.1 

1  A  good  deal  has  been  said  and  written  lately  "  On  the  Study  of  Greek 
and  Latin,"  especially  at  our  Universities.  I  will  not  repeat  what  has 
already  been  urged  in  these  pages,  on  the  uses  of  Classical  Literature,  as 
an  essential  part  of  a  Liberal  Education,  and  particularly  as  indispensable 
for  the  study  of  Theology,  and  for  Biblical  Criticism,  and  for  the  defence 
of  Revealed  Religion  (see  above,  p.  15 — 19).  But  there  is  another  view 
of  this  subject  which  will,  it  may  be  supposed,  commend  itself  even  to 
those  who  discuss  such  a  question  as  this  on  grounds  of  practical  utility, 
and  are  disposed  for  such  reasons  to  disparage  the  study  of  the  ancient 
tongues  in  comparison  with  that  of  living  languages,  which  are  mediums 
of  social  communication.  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  fact,  that  a  person 
who  has  mastered  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  can  in  fact  understand 
French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  more  perfectly  than  a  Frenchman,  Italian, 
or  Spaniard  who  is  not  acquainted  with  those  ancient  languages,  from 
which  his  own  is  in  a  great  measure  derived  ;  and  that,  therefore,  the 
study  of  Ancient  languages  is  valuable  for  the  thorough  knowiedge  of 
Modern  ones.  But  the  truth  also  is,  and  it  deserves  attention  at  a  time 
when  the  relations  of  England  with  the  East  are  becoming  more  intimate 
(especially  by  the  acquisition  of  Cyprus)  that  the  Greek  language,  espe- 
cially what  is  commonly  called  the  Hellenistic  form  of  it,  is  not  a  dead 
language,  but  a  living  one.  Even  the  Greek  newspapers  (such  as  are 
printed  at  Constantinople  and  Athens)  are  receding  farther  from  the 
Romaic,  and  approaching  more  nearly  to  the  Hellenic.  And  the 
Hellenistic  is  the  language  of  the  Eastern  Church.  Let  any  one  look  at  a 
work  of  such  Greek  Ecclesiastics  as  Giconomus,  or  Pharmakides,  or 
Gregory  of  Chios,  at  the  present  time,  or  refer  to  the  letter  (printed  above 
in  vol.  i.  p.  293)  from  the  Archbishop  of  Syros  to  the  Author  of  these 
Volumes,  and  he  will  at  once  recognize  the  truth  of  this  statement. 
"When  Pius  IXth  addressed  the  Greek  Patriarchs  in  Romaic,  and  not  in 
Hellenic,  they  imagined  that  he  intended  to  insult  them,  and  said  that 
they  might  as  well  have  addressed  him  in  Italian,  instead  of  Latin.  The 
study  of  ancient  Greek  is  therefore  becoming  more  necessary  from  the 
conditions  of  modern  Society,  especially  in  religious  and  ecclesiastical 
matters.  The  Greek  Church  never  uses  the  Romaic — but  always  the 
Hellenic — in  her  public  Offices.  And  it  is  to  be  wished  that  the  venerable 
Society  for  Promoting  Christian  knowledge  would  print  for  circulation 
a  cheap  edition  of  the  English  Book  of  Common  Prayer  in  Hellenic  (such 
as  Bagster's,  Lond.  1820)  instead  of  disseminating  unscholarly  versions 
of  it  in  Romaic,  which  present  our  Prayer  Book  to  the  Greek  mind — 
especially  to  the  mind  of  Greek  Bishops  and  Clergy — in  an  unfavourable 
and  derogatory  view.  As  to  the  Epistolary,  and  even  Colloquial  uses,  of 
the  Latin  Language,  and  consequent  advantages  to  be  derived  from  it  at 
the  present  time,  some  remarks  have  been  offered  in  another  place 
(above,  vol.  i.  p.  462,  488). 


Lambeth  Letter ;  1878. 


475 


To  THE  FAITHFUL  IN  CHRIST  JESUS,  GREETING,  

We,  Archbishops,  Bishops  Metropolitan,  and  other 
Bishops  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  in  full  communion 
with  the  Church  of  England,  one  hundred  in  number,  all 
exercising  superintendence  over  Dioceses,  or  lawfully  com- 
missioned to  exercise  Episcopal  functions  therein,  assembled, 
many  of  us  from  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  earth,  at 
Lambeth  Palace,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1878,  under  the 
presidency  of  the  Most  Reverend  Archibald  Campbell,  by 
Divine  Providence  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Primate  of  all 
England  ;  after  receiving,  in  the  private  Chapel  of  the  said 
Palace,  the  blessed  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Body  and  Blood, 
and  after  having  united  in  prayer  for  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  have  taken  into  our  consideration  various 
definite  questions  submitted  to  us  affecting  the  condition  of 
the  Church  in  divers  parts  of  the  world. 

We  have  made  these  questions  the  subject  of  sei'ious 
deliberation  for  many  days,  and  we  now  commend  to  the 
faithful  the  conclusions  which  have  been  adopted. 

In  considering  the  best  mode  of  maintaining  union  among 
the  various  Churches  of  our  Communion,  the  Committee, 
first  of  all,  recognize,  with  deep  thankfulness  to  Almighty 
God,  the  essential  and  evident  unity  in  which  the  Church 
of  England  and  the  Churches  in  visible  communion  with 
her  have  always  been  bound  together.  United  under  One 
Divine  Head  in  the  fellowship  of  the  One  Catholic  and 
Apostolic  Church,  holding  the  One  Faith  revealed  in  Holy 
Writ,  defined  in  the  Creeds,  and  maintained  by  the  Primitive 
Church,  receiving  the  same  Canonical  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  as  containing  all  things  necessary  to 
salvation  — these  Churches  teach  the  same  Word  of  God, 
partake  of  the  same  divinely-ordained  Sacraments,  through 
the  ministry  of  the  same  Apostolic  orders,  and  worship  one 
God  and  Father  through  the  same  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  the 
same  Holy  and  Divine  Spirit,  Who  is  given  to  those  that 
believe,  to  guide  them  into  all  truth. 

Together  with  this  unity,  however,  there  has  existed 
among  these  Churches  that  variety  of  custom,  discipline,  and 


476 


Miscellanies. 


form  of  worship  which  necessarily  results  from  the  exercise 
by  each  "  particular  or  national  Church  "  of  its  right  "  to 
ordain,  change,  and  abolish  ceremonies  or  rites  of  the  Church 
ordained  only  by  man's  authority,  so  that  all  things  be 
done  to  edifying."  We  gladly  acknowledge  that  there  is  at 
present  no  real  ground  for  anxiety  on  account  of  this 
diversity ;  but  the  desire  has  of  late  been  largely  felt  and 
expressed,  that  some  practical  and  efficient  methods  should 
be  adopted,  in  order  to  guard  against  possible  sources  of 
disunion  in  the  future,  and  at  the  same  time  further  to  mani- 
fest and  cheiish  that  true  and  substantial  agreement  which 
exists  among  these  increasingly  numerous  Churches. 

The  method  which  first  naturally  suggests  itself  is  that 
which,  originating  with  the  inspired  Apostles,  long  served 
to  hold  all  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  one  undivided  and 
visible  communion.  The  assembling,  however,  of  a  true 
General  Council,  such  as  the  Church  of  England  has  always 
declared  her  readiness  to  resort  to,  is,  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  Christendom,  unhappily  but  obviously  impossible. 
The  difficulties  attending  the  assembling  of  a  Synod  of  all 
the  Anglican  Churches,  though  different  in  character  and 
less  serious  in  nature,  seem  to  us  nevertheless  too  great  to 
allow  of  our  recommending  it  for  present  adoption. 

The  experiment,  now  twice  tried,  of  a  Conference  of 
Bishops  called  together  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  meeting  under  his  presidency,  offers  at  least  the  hope 
that  the  problem,  hitherto  unsolved,  of  combining  together 
for  consultation  representatives  of  Churches  so  differently 
situated  and  administered,  may  find,  in  the  providential 
course  of  events,  its  own  solution.  Your  Committee  would, 
on  this  point,  venture  to  suggest  that  such  Conferences, 
called  together  from  time  to  time  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  at  the  request  of,  or  in  consultation  with,  the 
Bishops  of  our  Communion,  might  with  advantage  be  invested 
in  future  with  somewhat  larger  liberty  as  to  the  initiation 
and  selection  of  subjects  for  discussion.  For  example,  a 
Committee  might  be  constituted,  such  as  should  represent, 
more  or  less  completely,  the  several  Churches  of  the  Anglican 
Communion ;  and  to  this  Committee  it  might  be  entrusted 


Lambeth  Letter,  1878. 


477 


to  draw  up,  after  receiving  communications  from  the  Bishops, 
a  scheme  of  subjects  to  be  discussed. 

Your  Committee,  believing  that,  next  to  oneness  in  "  the 
Faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints/'  communion  in  worship 
is  the  link  which  most  firmly  binds  together  bodies  of 
Christian  men,  and  remembering  that  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  retained  as  it  is,  with  some  modifications,  by  all  our 
Churches,  has  been  one  principal  bond  of  union  among  them, 
desire  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  such  communion  in 
worship  may  be  endangered  by  excessive  diversities  of  ritual. 
They  believe  that  the  internal  unity  of  the  several  Churches 
will  help  greatly  to  the  union  of  these  one  with  another. 
And,  while  they  consider  that  such  large  elasticity  in  the 
forms  of  worship  is  desirable  as  will  give  wide  scope  to  all  legi- 
timate expressions  of  devotional  feeling,  they  would  appeal, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  the  Apostolic  precept  that  "all  things  be 
done  unto  edifying,"  and  to  the  Catholic  principle  that  order 
and  obedience,  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  personal  preferences 
and  tastes,  lie  at  the  foundation  of  Christian  unity,  and  are 
even  essential  to  the  successful  maintenance  of  the  Faith. 

They  cannot  leave  this  subject  without  expressing  an 
earnest  hope  that  Churchmen  of  all  views,  however  varying, 
will  recognize  the  duty  of  submitting  themselves,  for 
conscience  sake,  in  matters  ritual  and  ceremonial,  to  the 
authoritative  judgments  of  that  particular  or  national  Church 
in  which,  by  God's  Providence,  they  may  be  placed ;  and 
that  they  will  abstain  from  all  that  tends  to  estrangement  or 
irritation,  and  will  rather  daily  and  fervently  pray  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  may  guide  every  member  of  the  Church  to 
"  think  and  do  always  such  things  as  be  rightful/''  and  that 
He  may  unite  us  all  in  that  brotherly  charity  which  is  "  the 
very  bond  of  peace  and  of  all  virtues." 

The  fact  that  a  solemn  protest  is  raised  in  so  many 
Churches  and  Christian  communities  throughout  the  world 
against  the  usurpations  of  the  See  of  Rome,  and  against  the 
novel  doctrines  promulgated  by  its  authority,  is  a  subject  for 
thankfulness  to  Almighty  God.  All  sympathy  is  due  from 
the  Anglican  Church  to  the  Churches  and  individuals  pro- 


478 


Miscellanies. 


testing  against  these  errors,  and  labouring,  it  may  be,  under 
special  difficulties  from  the  assaults  of  unbelief  as.  well  as 
from  the  pretensions  of  Rome. 

We  acknowledge  but  one  Mediator  between  God  and  men 
— the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  Who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  for 
ever.  We  reject,  as  contrary  to  the  Scriptures  and  to 
Catholic  truth,  any  doctrine  which  would  set  up  other 
mediators  in  His  place,  or  which  would  take  away  from  the 
Divine  Majesty  of  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  which  dwelleth 
in  Him,  and  which  gave  an  infinite  value  to  the  spotless 
Sacrifice  which  He  offered,  once  for  all,  on  the  Cross  for  the 
sins  of  the  whole  world. 

It  is  therefore  our  duty  to  warn  the  faithful  that  the  act 
done  by  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  in  the  Vatican  Council,  in  the 
year  1870 — whereby  he  asserted  a  supremacy  over  all  men 
in  matters  both  of  faith  and  morals,  on  the  ground  of  an 
assumed  infallibility — was  an  invasion  of  the  attributes  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

The  principles  on  which  the  Church  of  England  has 
reformed  itself  are  well  known.  We  proclaim  the  sufficiency 
and  supremacy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  the  ultimate  rule 
of  faith,  and  commend  to  our  people  the  diligent  study  of 
the  same.  We  confess  our  faith  in  the  words  of  the  ancient 
Catholic  creeds.  We  retain  the  Apostolic  order  of  Bishops, 
Priests,  and  Deacons.  We  assert  the  just  liberties  of 
particular  or  national  Churches.  We  provide  our  people,  in 
their  own  tongue,  with  a  Book  of  Common  Prayer  and 
Offices  for  the  administration  of  the  Sacraments,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  best  and  most  ancient  types  of  Christian  faith 
and  worship.  These  documents  are  before  the  world,  and 
can  be  known  and  read  of  all  men.  We  gladly  welcome 
every  effort  for  reform  upon  the  model  of  the  Primitive 
Church.  We  do  not  demand  a  rigid  uniformity ;  we  depre- 
cate needless  divisions ;  but  to  those  who  are  drawn  to  us  in 
the  endeavour  to  free  themselves  from  the  yoke  of  error  and 
superstition  we  are  ready  to  offer  all  help,  and  such  privileges 
as  may  be  acceptable  to  them  and  are  consistent  with  the 
maintenance  of  our  own  principles  as  enunciated  in  our 
formularies. 


Lambeth  Letter,  1878. 


479 


With  regard  to  those  questions  in  connexion  with  the 
Laws  of  Marriage,  which  have  been  submitted  to  them,  your 
Committee,  while  fully  recognizing  the  difficulties  in  which 
various  branches  of  the  Church  have  been  placed  by  the 
action  of  local  Legislatures,  are  of  opinion  that  steps  should 
be  taken  by  each  branch  of  the  Church,  according  to  its  own 
discretion,  to  maintain  the  sanctity  of  marriage,  agreeably 
to  the  principles  set  forth  in  the  Word  of  God,  as  the  Church 
of  Christ  hath  hitherto  received  the  same. 

Considering  unhappy  disputes  on  questions  of  ritual, 
whereby  divers  congregations  in  the  Church  of  England 
and  elsewhere  have  been  seriously  disquieted,  your  Com- 
mittee desire  to  affirm  the  principle  that  no  alteration  from 
long-accustomed  ritual  should  be  made  contrary  to  the 
admonition  of  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese. 

Further,  having  in  view  several  novel  practices  and 
teachings  on  the  subject  of  Confession,  your  Committee 
desire  to  affirm  that  in  the  matter  of  Confession  the 
Churches  of  the  Anglican  Communion  hold  fast  those 
principles  which  are  set  forth  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which 
were  professed  by  the  Primitive  Church,  and  which  were 
reaffirmed  at  the  English  Reformation;  and  it  is  their 
deliberate  opinion  that  no  minister  of  the  Church  is  autho- 
rized to  require  from  those  who  may  resort  to  him  to  open 
their  grief  a  particular  or  detailed  enumeration  of  all  their 
sins,  or  to  require  private  confession  previous  to  receiving 
the  Holy  Communion,  or  to  enjoin  or  even  encourage  the 
practice  of  habitual  confession  to  a  Priest,  or  to  teach  that 
such  practice  of  habitual  confession,  or  the  being  subject  to 
what  has  been  termed  the  direction  of  a  Priest,  is  a  con- 
dition of  attaining  to  the  highest  spiritual  life.  At  the  same 
time  your  Committee  are  not  to  be  understood  as  desiring 
to  limit  in  any  way  the  provision  made  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  for  the  relief  of  troubled  consciences. 

These  are  the  practical  conclusions  at  which  we  have 
arrived,  which  apply  to  all  branches  of  the  Church  Uni- 
versal. We  invite  to  them  the  attention  of  the  various 
Synods  and  other  governing  powers  in  the  several  Churches} 
and  of  all  the  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus  throughout  the  world. 


43o 


Miscellanies. 


We  do  not  claim  to  be  lords  over  God's  heritage,  but  we 
commend  the  results  of  this  our  Conference  to  the  reason 
and  conscience  of  our  brethren  as  enlightened  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  of  God,  praying  that  all  throughout  the  world  who 
call  upon  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  may  be  of 
one  mind,  may  be  united  in  one  fellowship,  may  hold  fast 
the  Faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints,  and  worship  their 
one  Lord  in  the  spirit  of  purity  and  love. 

Signed,  on  behalf  of  the  Conference, 

A.  C.  Cantoar. 


LETTER  TO  THE  ARCHBISHOP  OE  CYPRUS. 


In  the  November  after  the  Lambeth  Conference,  I  was 
requested  by  the  Rev.  Josiah  Spencer,  to  furnish  him.  with 
a  letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Cyprus.  Mr.  Spencer  has 
now  sailed  to  Cyprus  (Jan.  1879),  as  Chaplain  to  the 
English  residents  there ;  in  connexion  with  the  "  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel." 
The  letter  is  as  follows  : — 

T&)  Uaviepoyrdro)  K.virpuov  ' Ap^LeirLGKOTra),  teal  Tot?  avv 
avju>  ae0aap,icoTaTOi<;  'E7ricr/co7ro£?,  XpiaToipopos  AtyKoXvLas 
iv  'AyyXia  ,E1irtaK07ro<;,  yaipeiv  iv  K-Vpiw. 

LvvlcrTdfiev  rrj  vfjuerepa  TlaviepoTrjri  tov  dSeXqbbv  r)puwv 
ujaTTijrbv,  tov  alSeaipuov  'Icoaiav  ^irevaep,  'E/e/cX?7cria9  Ka#o- 
Xt/aj9  'AyyXtKavrj?  irpeafivTepov,  6p0o8o£ia  7rurTea>?  Kal 
ae/JLV0T7]TL  filov  hehoKLp.aauevov,  Kal  e«Tei>a>?  vfiwv  8e6p,eda  'Iva 
(pcXo(pp6v(D<;  avTov  he^rjaOe,  Kal  TrapaaTrjTe  avTw  iv  a>  civ  vpuwv 
XPV^V  Trpayp-aTL'  Kal  yap  a£<6?  iaTi. 

"Ap,a  Kal  p,€Tacf>pacnv,  St'  7/peTepa?  fieTpiorrjTos  7re7rovrjp,evy]v, 
avv  aiiTui  cnreaTaXKafiev  'EtticttoXt}?  t?}?  twv  eKarbv  'Evrta-tfo- 
TTcov  vewail  ev '  AyyXia  ivYlaXaT iw  Aap./3r)6ava> avvrjd 'poia p,evcov , 
elt  rjv  eyKvirTovres  dewpelv  ovvrjade  tL  (ppovei  rj  'AyyXiKavrj 
'EKKXrjala  irepl  t>}?  ev  XptcrT&i  irlaTewi,  Kal  irepl  twv  lepcov 
ypafywv,  Kal  irepl  twv  Hvp,(36Xwv,  twv  ev  Tat?  olKov/J.eviKat^ 
XvvoSois  t?}?  dp^at'a?  'Eftr/cX^cria?  KeKvpcop-evwv. 

Aonrbv,  p-era  iroXXov  ae/3aap.ov  Kal  <piXo<ppoavvr]<;  v/j.a<;  da- 
ira%6p,eda,  dyairrjrol  ev  Kvpiw  d8eX<pol,  t?}?  7repi(p>)p,ov  tov 
dyicoTaTOV  ' AiroaToXov  T5apvd/3a  7raTpt'8o?  dp^tepea?,  Kal  tov 
ev  dyloi<;  7rarpb<;  r]p.o)V  'EiTMpaviov,  tov  aocpcoTUTOv  t»}?  SaXa- 
pt^o?  iv  Kinrpw  liriaKOTTov,  SiaSa^ou?,  Kal  iyKapoiws  tu>  (deoZ 

VOL.  III.  I  i 


482  M iscel lan  ies. 

€v%6fi.e6a,  'Iva,  KaOdrrep  ravvv  avp.Tro\irai  riov  YLvrrpiwv  rjp,ei<; 
"AyyXoi,  6e(a  rvpovoiq,  yeyovafisv,  ovrco<;  pua  yvd)p,r)  Kal  puia 
(fxovf)  7;/xet5  ovv  vplv  tov  avrov  (")eov  Kal  Ylarepa  Sid  tov  avrov 
'Tlov  'lr/aoy  ^picrrov  iv  ra>  avrco  'Aylw  Ylvevp-ari  <re/3a>/xe#a, 
Kal  iva  Sep  rjfiiv  6  Oeo?  to  avro  abpovelv  iv  rracriv,  Kal  ['va  t?}? 
avrrjs  irrovpaviov  UarpiSo<;  avvoiKot,  yeviofieda  elt  tov  alwva. 
'Ayu.?;v. 

"RppcoaOe  iv  K.vpiw,  dSe\cpol  iv  Xpto"Ta5  dyamjroi. 
'ES6^?7  iv  AijKoXviq,  Kal  ivearj/jbdvOr/  rfj  imaKoiriKfj  rjficov 
acppayiSi  erei  crcorvpm  acoorj,  firjvbs  Noe/ii/3pioy(  7]/j,epa  ku. 
'O  AiyKoXvia1;  'FiTTicricoTro*;  ~Kpicrr6cpopo<;. 


English  Translation  of  the  above. 

To  the  Most  Reverend  the  Archbishop  of  Cyprus  and  to  the 
Right  Reverend  the  Bishops  his  Suffragans,  Christopher, 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  sends  greeting  in  the  Lord — 

We  commend  to  your  Grace  and  Lordships,  our  beloved 
brother,  the  Eev.  Josiah  Spencer,  Presbyter  of  the  Anglican 
Catholic  Church,  well  approved  for  the  soundness  of  his 
faith  and  godliness  of  his  life ;  and  we  earnestly  pray  you 
to  receive  him  benevolently,  and  to  assist  him  in  whatever 
matter  he  may  need  your  help  ;  for  he  is  worthy. 

At  the  same  time  we  have  sent  by  his  hands  a  copy  of  the 
translation,  which  has  been  made  by  us,  of  the  letter  of  the 
Hundred  Bishops  lately  gathered  together  in  England  in 
the  Archiepiscopal  Palace  at  Lambeth ;  from  the  perusal  of 
which  you  may  perceive  what  the  mind  of  the  Church  of 
England  is  concerning  the  faith  that  is  in  Christ,  and  con- 
cerning the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  concerning  the  Creeds, 
which  were  ratified  in  the  (Ecumenical  Councils  of  the 
Ancient  Church. 

Finally,  with  much  veneration  and  affection,  dearly 
beloved  in  the  Lord,  we  salute  you  the  chief  Pastors  of  the 
far-famed  native  land  of  the  holy  Apostle  St.  Barnabas;  and 
the  successors  of  the  holy  father  St.  Epiphanius,  that  most 
learned  Bishop  of  Salamis  in  Cyprus ;  and  heartily  do  we 


Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Cyprus.  483 


pray  to  God,  that  like  as  now,  by  His  Divine  Providence, 
we  who  dwell  in  England  have  become  fellow-citizens  with 
you  in  Cyprus,  so  with  one  mind  and  one  mouth  we  together 
with  you  may  worship  the  same  God  and  Father,  through 
the  same  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  same  Holy 
Spirit,  and  that  He  may  grant  to  us  to  be  of  one  mind  in 
all  things ;  and  that  we  may  become  fellow-citizens  and 
dwellers  together  hereafter  in  the  same  heavenly  City,  for 
evermore.  Amen. 

Fare  ye  well,  brethren  dearly  beloved  in  Christ. 

Dated  in  the  city  of  Lincoln,  and  sealed  with  our  Episcopal 
seal,  on  the  21st  day  of  November,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1878. 


GILBERT  AND  RIVINGTON,  PRINTERS,  ST.  JOHN'S  SQUARE,  LONDON. 


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